One Step at a Time

Slow down.  

This is the response I have almost daily to people who call or email me.  

It’s uncomfortable to be on the other end of a communication with someone who you don’t know that doesn’t know you but wants you to buy something. And this is a big challenge with a lot of entrepreneurs, business owners, salespeople and managers who want to go from A to Z in one step (mostly for reasons of efficiency and not realizing why it’s a bad idea).

Relationships are built one step at a time, and good sales conversations follow the same principle. First I want you to want to talk to me. I want to inspire or seduce you into a conversation, compel you to reach out or inspire you to want to be part of my tribe and learn from me. When I believe that you’re interested, I’ll take the next step.

Second, I want you to talk to me. Engage with me because you can’t not, you realize that there’s potential value for you that you want to capture, or because you’ve already gotten value from me and you want more. I want you to return my email, my LinkedIn mail, my phone call, text or social communication

It’s making this step 2 happen that’s slippery for a lot of people. This is the point at which a lot of communication takes a ‘wrong’ turn. Here’s what we see happening & we’re leading a series of free webinars on how to shift out of these behaviors that cost you money into behaviors that make you money:

1. Communication gets dropped  

• People get busy, life happens and conversations get lost
• Business owners and mangers don’t prioritize and have a system to manage these communications 
• Salespeople get fearful about communicating because they feel like they need to sell something and they let their anxiety influence their communication

2. Communication gets shortcut

• Business owners and salespeople attempt to move quickly through follow up and end up doing more disconnecting than connecting
• They cut to the chase and ask prospects to buy too early

3. They give up

• If a lead or prospect does not return their communication on the first or 2nd attempt, they give up and move on to the next person
• They keep looking for new leads instead of learning how to communicate with the ones they already have

4. They vomit all over people

• They communicate in ways that repel rather than attract their potential customers
• They write long, drawn out emails
• They don’t have a call to action in their communication
• They talk about themselves instead of the benefits that their customers will receive
• They send a cold sales pitch over email or voicemail 

Our recommendations and training focus on prioritizing, streamlining communication and automating tasks that interfere with priorities. Easy to say, harder to do.

Prioritizing sales communication usually requires 2 shifts:

• A change in mindset, moving out of the fear & into confidence. This requires education that provides actionable tactics.
• An understanding of the bottom line costs and value of these conversations to the profitability of your business. This usually requires education around your numbers and KPIs.

Shifting out of shortcut thinking requires education:

• Understanding the stages of the buyer journey
• Developing better listening skills
• Learning a process to progress prospects from one stage to the next

Giving up usually gets resolved when business owners understand prioritizing and have started to shift out of shortcut thinking.

Communication shifts happen when business owners and salespeople learn how to develop their listening skills and understand the buyer journey.

These shifts will quickly and dramatically improve your bottom line and ready you to effectively grow your business.

Here’s a webinar on taking the first step if you’re interested.

Register for our next webinar on Best Practices for Lead Conversion here.