I don't think anyone likes prospecting random strangers, bothering them, and trying to get them to buy something! Even if you are confident after a 4 hour sales training in Pittsburgh, you still want to avoid these circumstances. It is an uncomfortable process for both you and the prospective customer. Consumers also have a natural guard up against salespeople. They have been pitched, advertised to, harassed, and annoyed many times in their lifetime!
How can you avoid this being a daily occurrence, while still generating more business? Through referrals! The warmest lead in business is from the kind words of a trusted friend, family member, or co worker, to buy a product. At this point they are doing the sales for you! All you have to do is show up, not cuss them out, and close the deal.
Now referrals will happen naturally if you actually provide a great service or product for your customers. The more raving fans you create, the more free sales people you get on your team. Here's a few tricks on putting this into motion for your company https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS7SmFutQUs&t=2s
There are other strategies to try to push this process along faster! Here are three approaches to getting in front of your ideal customer or client without any marketing dollars, and without awkward elevator pitches!
LinkedIN provides a ton of criteria to filter down to your ideal customer. Let's say you want to work with mortgage brokers. Search the city you are in, search Mortgage Broker, Loan Officer, or Mortgages in the Title, and select "2nd" connections. This is important because it will be people who you are not connected to, but you both have a mutual connection with.
Connect with these individuals that pop up on the search results. Add a sincere message with the connection request. "Hey Mortgage Broker, saw you are local here in Pittsburgh too would love to connect sometime, have a great afternoon!" Something short and sweet to be warmer than a cold click of a button like you are spamming the whole list.
Next, look at their "mutual connections" these are people you are both connected to. Hopefully you actually know at least one of these people on a personal level and reach out to them. "Hey I recently got connected with (Mortgage Broker) and he is exactly the kind of client I look for. Do you know him well? I was thinking about reaching out!"
Hopefully the response is yes they do and they speak highly of the broker. If this is the case, go ahead and ask them if they wouldn't mind setting you up with an intro and referring you!
Facebook also has a search engine that you can filter down by location and title. Maybe you sell to business owners, restaurants, or even teachers. Whatever it is, type that into the title box under the location you are targeting. Do the same exercise of locating who the "mutual friends" are. You can also find a ton of information just from their home page. What they like, groups they are involved in, who they are related to. These are even more opportunities to locate people or groups you are mutually connected with. Now ask the mutual contact to connect you the same way we discussed with the LinkedIn strategy!
3. Phone Calls
Now this isn't as glamorous as being an FBI agent on social media and finding leads without leaving your couch, but still effective! Go through your rolodex of customers or clients (which you should be keeping), and find some that you know you really made happy. Simply reach out to check in with them as you should be anyway. Then ask them if they can refer you to someone very similar to them to work with. (same industry, business, age, location, etc) People tend to hang around with similar people! If you have a customer that is big into fitness, I bet they have other friends that are into health and wellness too! This is the key to getting a good referral. If you ask blindly for them to refer anyone to you, they will just get lost in all their contacts and not have anyone to send you.
I hope these were some easy tricks that you can implement immediately and improve sales for your business! The best leads are referrals so you might as well focus on getting more of them. If you want more guidance from a Pittsburgh Business Coach, email us at RaibleRealtyInvestments@gmail.com