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Tim Brown and Dan Streeter, Co-Authors, of Old School with New Tools:  The Extra 5% That Takes You to the Top of Your Sales Game and Keeps You There

We have all heard it.  People buy from the people they like and trust.

This adage has been true since the beginning of time.  Even hunters and gathers were reluctant to barter with someone they did not like and avoided people they did not trust. And operating in our 21st Century economy is no different.

In fact, throughout the centuries, trust and likeability could all be predicated on a basic formula called the “C-U-T model.”

Essentially, how well we communicate combined with matching our customer’s sense of urgency builds trust.

What IS different in our 21st Century world is that we now have incredible technological tools that allow us to: 

For example in years past, most of us would attend a networking event, collect a bunch of business cards, wait at least 2 days to reach out to the prospect (because we did not want to seem “too hungry”), and meanwhile they have forgotten all about us.  We would then place the prospect on our regular monthly newsletter list and wait for them to reach out to us.

This methodology worked (at least a little) up until the late 1990’s as most of us really only had two ways to reach out to customers: by our land-line phones (we could call) and our feet (we could travel to you).  Your prospect was much less accessible, so taking a “wait and see” approach was much more reasonable. 

But today, there are countless ways to reach out to prospects most of which are totally free and available on the most powerful sales device ever conceived…your smart phone.  And make no mistake your competitors are using them to reach our prospects and even your most closely held customers each and every day.

Let’s just use our networking example from above.  While you are waiting until the next day to complete the two to three hours of data entry on your business cards stockpile, a competing sales person met that same prospect at the same event. The difference is that in the 10 minutes it took for your competitor’s car to warm up after the conclusion of the event, they used their smart phone to scan all of the business cards they collected, sent all their contact information (including their social media handles), and a beautifully designed LinkedIn request within one email.  In addition, your competitor added the prospect to their contacts in their phone and your competitor’s CRM.

It seems that such a system would be complicated or very expensive, but the truth is it’s all possible with a simple combination of 3 FREE iPhone apps: Scannable, Evernote, and LinkedIn. This time-saving process can be accomplished in less than 10 minutes and can save you and your team literally dozens of hours a year.

Research has shown that most salespeople wait on average 44 hours before contacting a potential client (entrepreneur.com, 2014).   In contrast, 50% of sales go to the first sales person to make contact with the prospect.  Essentially, if you do not use the simple and free tools available on your phone to develop and maintain contact with a prospect, you are giving your competitor an almost unrecoverable 24-hour head start with every potential client you meet.  Not to mention, while you are sitting at your computer completing the data entry for the previous night’s networking event, your competitor now has the time to pursue your best client.

At your next sales meeting, ask your salespeople to count the number of apps on their smart phones. (The average number of apps is 44.)  Then ask, “How many of those apps are dedicated to building sales and promoting their livelihood?” Most sales people will only say email and possibly texting. In 2015, there were over 10 billion downloads of iPhone business-related apps that your competitors were using.  It’s time to find a few new 21st Century tools that will allow you and your team to elevate your sales game.

The possibilities are endless. Now, Go Breakthrough!


About the Authors

Tim Brown and Dan Streeter are the co-authors of Old School with New Tools:  The Extra 5% That Takes You to the Top of Your Sales Game and Keeps You There. After carrying a sales bag throughout the world, Tim has grown to become one of the most sought after business leaders in the country.  Dan is an award-winning educator and workshop designer with a pretty strong sales lineage of his own.  To learn more, you can listen to Tim and Dan’s Old School with New Tools Podcast located on iTunes and Stitcher.

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