Are you invisible?
We can be invisible to anyone and everyone at times. You know the feeling; it would be like trying out for an acting role with 10,000 other people dressed in the same black and white clothing. What we actually want is to stand out as if we were the only ones dressed in black and white while everyone else is dressed in a light peach clown outfit. It is a tough challenge when everyone is just like us. However, we often force ourselves into this wallpaper strategy when we conform to a prospect's or customer's initial request.
Perhaps you remember what it was like in high school when you wanted to get noticed by the guy or girl you were interested in. It was the little things that you tried anything and just about everything. I remember a girl named Pat that I wanted to meet more than anything and she finally noticed me in the home economics class when we worked on a project together. The only reason I took the class was to get close to her. We ended up dating and having our high school romance.
There isn't much difference in outside sales. We try to get noticed by our clients and prospects in ways that will attract them to us more than others. We might even take a course in something new so we are closer to our client's goals. When we are interested in someone, we want to know everything about them and will ask our friends, their friends and learn as much as we can.
Getting good information and profiling
Today we can learn a lot about a business when we use the internet and network with associates who are in the business. We are in the information age and there isn't an excuse for not knowing something about a business, if we are really interested.
We stand a better chance of getting noticed when we know the interests and challenges of the business contact we want to do business with. Anytime we have good information and intelligence on an industry we will stand out and the client will reward us for our perspective and interest in them. We know that the best resource for learning what a client wants is to ask good questions.
Good questions come from knowing what to ask because we suspect what the client is interested in. In high school I learned that my future girl friend, Pat, was going to take the home economics course. I took the class and learned how to cook and also met Pat. What a coincidence. In business knowing about a specific service we offer which our prospect shares an interest in is ideal. If they are interested in mailing services, we must learn how to talk to our prospect about mailing services too.
Breaking the ice
Getting noticed and becoming visible to our prospects is a matter of learning what they want and filling a need. It is sometimes being in the right place at the right time and knowing we are in the right place at the right time. In sales we often make our own luck and we can accomplish this with solid research on our prospects. Asking good questions is often a key to this success. Good questions serve as great ice breakers when we have done our research.
Steve Martinez implements sales management strategies with a focus on automating sales for printing organizations. Selling Magic teaches businesses how to automate and customizing ACT or Outlook with the best practices of sales management while integrating email marketing and technology for greater profits. http://www.sellingmagic.com
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