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February 23, 2016 at 6:42 am #994060Up::0
I’ve identified a customer profile that I want to target. I have created (am creating) introductory materials that explains what I benefits I am offering in less than 30 seconds (hopefully).
With a smallish number of these potential customers (law professionals of a certain profile) in the industry I wonder how best to connect with these people and deliver my introduction, and generate follow ups?
For now my idea is mail marketing campaign with an trail period. An offer of 2 hours service, walkaway no strings attached.
I’d be interested to learn how other people have developed their sales strategies. I want to hone in on something effective. I realise that cold calling can be a nuisance and tends to get a low hit ratio. What are some other delivery methods to reach people?
February 23, 2016 at 1:01 pm #1194895Up::0Watching this thread because I’m curious about peoples sales strategies too.
Only thing I can contribute is to look at things like BMR which can help connect you with other professionals. The people who attend are generally business owners and in my experience, there can be a few law-practitioners present. Even if there aren’t any law guys around, MSP’s can point you in the right direction if you network right.
Mailing campaigns can often be overlooked because they’re pretty generic. I know that I personally just throw them all out without a second glance because I’m established with what I have, and no free offer will make me want to change a known devil.
You could try cold-calling, but I would only recommend that if you have a connection already (mutual could even do the trick). You could also demo your product (assuming it’s digital) to the afforementioned MSP’s and have them offer it to business owners.
February 24, 2016 at 12:22 am #1194896Up::0enix, post: 229293, member: 76650 wrote:Watching this thread because I’m curious about peoples sales strategies too.Only thing I can contribute is to look at things like BMR which can help connect you with other professionals. The people who attend are generally business owners and in my experience, there can be a few law-practitioners present. Even if there aren’t any law guys around, MSP’s can point you in the right direction if you network right.
Mailing campaigns can often be overlooked because they’re pretty generic. I know that I personally just throw them all out without a second glance because I’m established with what I have, and no free offer will make me want to change a known devil.
You could try cold-calling, but I would only recommend that if you have a connection already (mutual could even do the trick). You could also demo your product (assuming it’s digital) to the afforementioned MSP’s and have them offer it to business owners.
I agree about mailing campaigns. I don’t think this will reach people or an effective time investment. Cold calling is also dated and out.
My other sales strategy idea is to leverage the one (legal professional) contact I do have. If I can use him to generate x amount leads and introductions in return for y amount of service hours. This perhaps is quite a slow process however as gaining trust of new contacts can take a while as its so important in this industry – possibly a year.
So its another year or so before I can grow more leads beyond that.
As with all strategies I guess its a case of execute, review, refine and try again.
February 24, 2016 at 12:31 am #1194897Up::0cshiel, post: 229307, member: 74620 wrote:I agree about mailing campaigns. I don’t think this will reach people or an effective time investment. Cold calling is also dated and out.My other sales strategy idea is to leverage the one (legal professional) contact I do have. If I can use him to generate x amount leads and introductions in return for y amount of service hours. This perhaps is quite a slow process however as gaining trust of new contacts can take a while as its so important in this industry – possibly a year.
So its another year or so before I can grow more leads beyond that.
As with all strategies I guess its a case of execute, review, refine and try again.
What’s the product you’re trying to sell? Maybe there’s a slightly more creative approach?
February 24, 2016 at 1:17 am #1194898Up::0I would encourage you to think pull rather than push. What are the ways you can attract the type of customers you’re looking for to you, your brand and your business? Without knowing anything about your product or service this advice is a little generic but nonetheless effective. Here are a couple of ideas:
- Write engaging posts that relate to the issues/opportunities your customers are concerned about and publish them on LinkedIn.
- Work to stimulate debate on these issues by playing an active role in online and offline groups
- Contact industry specific publications and offer to provide/write content their readers would find engaging
- Ask for referrals from people who know like and trust you to the people you’re product or service can create exceptional value for
I hope these few ideas are helpful.
Very Best
Ian
February 24, 2016 at 1:47 am #1194899Up::0enix, post: 229308, member: 76650 wrote:What’s the product you’re trying to sell? Maybe there’s a slightly more creative approach?Its a transcription overnight turnaround service for legal (maybe others in the future) documents. Because of time zone differences between here and UK work can be done overnight and be ready next morning.
February 24, 2016 at 2:24 am #1194900Up::0Oh, maybe you could make a connection and tee-up a product demonstration, transcribe the entire meeting, have it turned around to them as fast as possible.
If that beats the general turn around time in the Industry, you should be off to a good start and hopefully get lawyers talking.
February 24, 2016 at 3:38 am #1194901Up::0enix, post: 229315, member: 76650 wrote:Oh, maybe you could make a connection and tee-up a product demonstration, transcribe the entire meeting, have it turned around to them as fast as possible.If that beats the general turn around time in the Industry, you should be off to a good start and hopefully get lawyers talking.
Larger firms have their own staff who can turn around work immediately, however its the smaller firms without sufficient full time staff/resources that may have overflow at the end of the day and need work ready by morning.
February 24, 2016 at 12:04 pm #1194902Up::0Best method?
Cold call the targets, any other method would be very time consuming and require a lot of trial and error.
The cold call itself doesn’t have to sound like an actual sales call, you can always tell them why you’re actually calling. They don’t keep updating phone services and new mobiles just for the sake of style (maybe some cellulars do these days).
For example, one script we use in our industry we use and I have used the same in all other industries as well (I call this the McSalad Method, I’ll explain later).
Call the customer up at a convenient time of the day;
Hi – Name, my name is ****, I’m from **** ***, is a manager or decision maker available? (wait)
Decision maker answers – Repeat your name and business name then go with the following;
We supply a few of the other businesses in your area and we would like to give you the same opportunity by having 5 minutes of your time, this isn’t a sales call of any sort, just wanted to see if any of our own products would interest you and benefit your business.Wait for either a yes or no and then take the details.
If the customer rejects you, make sure you remember the name and details, and give it to another sales person or call back after a week and act as a senior manager explaining to them a junior called and wanted to know what went wrong and how you know you can help there business. You’ll feel more empowered doing so because the phone call went into a nose dive anyway, but this gives you the second chance to revive it. How many of you have asked for “their/your manager” who seems to mysteriously fix the problem but never said really anything except hearing you vent? Works the same way when recycling prospects.
I do it like this because I want the prospect to give me the respect that I want, people don’t like being force-fed like the old days with something they don’t want. I believe a cold call is a great way to open a prospect but the trust test is the in person sale and thats what we focus on.
The McSalad Method, is where McDonalds sell’s salads but by the time you get there, you tend to buy everything else except salad or maybe a diet coke at the end.
This method works for me, but I could sound more of an authority figure over the phone compared to yourself then again one of my sales representatives is even better then me! But thats what you want in business, staff better then you! Hope it helps.
February 25, 2016 at 12:45 am #1194903Up::0Ian J Lowe, post: 229311, member: 77345 wrote:I would encourage you to think pull rather than push. What are the ways you can attract the type of customers you’re looking for to you, your brand and your business? Without knowing anything about your product or service this advice is a little generic but nonetheless effective. Here are a couple of ideas:- Write engaging posts that relate to the issues/opportunities your customers are concerned about and publish them on LinkedIn.
- Work to stimulate debate on these issues by playing an active role in online and offline groups
- Contact industry specific publications and offer to provide/write content their readers would find engaging
- Ask for referrals from people who know like and trust you to the people you’re product or service can create exceptional value for
I hope these few ideas are helpful.
Very Best
Ian
Definitely! I think pull does take longer than push so a balanced strategy is necessary.
The later two suggestions I think are solid. I’m trying to focus in ‘offline’ contact where possible as I think the quality of interaction is so much stronger.
Personally I tend to ignore LinkedIn posts and online content, just seems like there is too much poor quality information to sift through. Honestly every time I try to do anything sales/marketing online it ties my head in knots – so much conflicting information about the “right” way to do it.
So the opinion I formed is that winning trust is 100x slower and harder than face to face. Its “easier” to do online sales/marketing (in theory) which makes it so attractive to so many people. Especially those who are a little afraid of dealing with people in the real world – much like myself.
That’s not to say I would ignore an online presence but I think its of far less value than real world interaction.
February 26, 2016 at 3:37 am #1194904Up::0You could do some market research in the form of asking people from within the firms if you have your product offering right. You don’t have to sell during this process, (but some will buy) and you obtain valuable feedback to make tweaks.
February 26, 2016 at 4:42 am #1194905Up::0MD Clean, post: 229458, member: 58759 wrote:You could do some market research in the form of asking people from within the firms if you have your product offering right. You don’t have to sell during this process, (but some will buy) and you obtain valuable feedback to make tweaks.A great idea, thanks. I think the mistake I make so often is not understanding my customers enough so this stage has to come first. My temptation is to sell, sell, sell rather than listen, understand and forge relationships.
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