What if we take this literally?

After thinking about “Endless Referrals” by Bob Burg a
couple of thoughts popped into my head.

Could I train an effective marketing and sales team
to generate leads and conduct initial sales calls with just a vague sense of
what our products and services do?

Would this be effective at breaking the “it’s all about us”
cycle of client abuse?

I was actually surprised by the answer.

Yes, I could.

And it just might be.
Man putting business card in pocket networking

Networking 101

Have you ever been invited to a networking event and told to
bring a big stack of business cards?

Collecting large numbers of business cards is not good networking.

Giving out large numbers of cards is not good networking.

Great networking is all about the people you are meeting.
You put the focus on them by asking lots of good questions. Putting their
interests first. Connecting people together.

If you are really good at it, you only have to know what you
sell at a very high level.

“We help business owners Manifast their dream businesses.”

Then back to them.

Train my team to ask great questions and avoid talking about
us. Check.

Sales 101

You’ve been invited to meet a prospect or client. Off you go
with your company, product and services information for a presentation.

Wait.

“You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” ~ Zig Ziglar

So what DO they want?

What do you know about your client’s business?

  • What are the organization’s goals?
  • How are they progressing on their goals?
  • What does success look like?
  • What challenges are they facing in the market?
  • What are they fearful of?
  • What are their priorities?
  • What is their culture?

You are dealing with a person. What do you know about them?

  • What are their personal goals and
    interests?
  • What is their role?
  • What are their professional goals?
  • How do they win while helping “their”
    organization?
  • What keeps that person up at night?

You can add more questions but the point is that before you
talk about what you can do for them, you need to know what they want.

Otherwise you are talking to the 10% or less who might be
buying your stuff today or in the near future.

You are relying on them to make the connections between what
you stuff does and what they need.

And maybe, just maybe, they don’t need what you are selling
right now.

Maybe they need something else.

Maybe you can still help them get it.

Who will they remember? You will know more about your customers than anyone else.

Train my team to ask really good questions and listen to the
answers. Check.

Reality Check

I don’t actually recommend that your marketing and sales
team not know what you do or sell. Of course they need to be experts.

But the biggest thing they need to be experts at is figuring
out what clients want.

Listening.

Then showing them how they can get it.

But it would not hurt to “forget” about you and your stuff
and focus on the client when needed.

Actually it would really help.