SALES SUCCESS IS AS EASY AS A-B-C
by Emily Huling
You've been told sales is a numbers game. Through tireless effort, you've established a prospect list of 700. All names and contact information are loaded in your contact-management system. You're diligent about entering the pertinent information you have gathered about each prospect. You know how to use the software's sorting capabilities and frequently pull up prospects by city, number of employees, and revenue figures.
But it's getting to be overwhelming. You're having trouble organizing your time and prioritizing your best opportunities. Don't feel bad - you're not alone.
In addition to sales being a numbers game, it's also a visibility and relationship game. The purpose of an automated contact-management system is to be able to identify prospects so you can offer appropriate, timely, visible contact that builds relationships and demonstrates the value you and your products and services offer.
Three questions should be surfacing in your mind:
- Who gets what kind of contact?
- What's considered timely, visible contact?
- What are examples of meaningful contact?
Here's the process to go through to answer those questions:
WHO GETS WHAT KIND OF CONTACT?
Consider the selling cycle of your product or service-in other words, how long it takes for a prospect to learn about you and what you offer before buying. Each industry is different. The financial services field (insurance companies, stock brokerages, banks) may take as long as two years. These relationships are based on trust and need time to develop. (In contrast, the selling of office products-computers, copiers, and printing services-is much shorter because of the buyer's immediate need.)
Regardless of what your specific selling cycle is, remember that every sale has three stages: C (the diagnostic visit), B (cultivating the relationship), and A (proposal and sale). The diagnostic visit is the fact-finding, rapport-building, and needs-analysis stage. The relationship-cultivating stage requires actions that build trust and demonstrate that you and your company can add value. The proposal, the last stage before buying, should bring the first two stages to a successful close. No matter what the selling cycle, prospects need to move through all three stages before buying.
Now refer back to your 700 prospects. What stage are they in? Ideally you have a good mix of A, B, and C contacts. Your sales objective is to move the prospects up the stages from C (diagnostic) to B (cultivation) to A (proposal and sale).
WHAT'S TIMELY, VISIBLE CONTACT?
Contact should vary along with the A, B, and C categories you've assigned. C prospects aren't familiar with you or your firm, so the contact purpose should consist of image building and should establish marketing position. Prospects need to know who you are and what you offer. When that's established, you're in the B category, at which point you want to build value and trust through more frequent, specialized contact. At the A stage, the proposal is presented and requires more personalized contact (building on the first two stages).
EXAMPLES OF MEANINGFUL CONTACT
C-stage contact includes seeing prospects at business and community events, sending quarterly newsletters (or, with shorter selling cycles, more frequently), and providing them information about what you offer.
B-stage contact includes the C-stage items as well as the mailing of industry-specific items of interest, articles and notes of a more personal nature, and invitations to educational seminars that you're hosting or attending.
A-stage contact includes these, but adds more personal visits and shared activities.
One of the A-B-C prospecting method's advantages include a plan for salespeople to move prospects from the prospect to the client stage This helps prioritize contacts to gauge your sales successes better, helps your prospect recognize your image and the value you're adding, and increases client retention and loyalty. Use this system to turn your A-B-Cs into $$$.
Emily Huling, CIC, CMC, president of Selling Strategies, Inc., consults, educates, and speaks on sales management and sales and customer-service techniques to help businesses increase sales and profits. She can be reached at Selling Strategies, Inc., P.O. Box 200, Terrell, NC 28682 ; (888) 309-8802, fax (888) 398-7355; E-mail [email protected], Web site www.sellingstrategies.com.