The Sales Experiment

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Keep Your Eyes Open

One thing I never learned as an English major or as a seminary student was to keep my eyes open for opportunities.

You’d think I’d pick this skill up while studying to be a pastor, but I have a hard head.

Nope. It’s taken five years of pounding my brain with a steady stream of sales, leadership, and, yes, personal growth content to help me realize two things about keeping my eyes open.

  1. There are opportunities everywhere.
  2. There are people who could use a hand everywhere.

Usually, the two go hand in hand.

Since I’m currently (through March 1), working through what I’ve called the Dan Miller Challenge, I’ve had to be even more observant… on the lookout for opportunities to act on what I’m reading and listening to which, in turn, keeps me on the lookout for problems to solve, people to serve, and potential to stretch.

If the quality of our life depends on our ability, willingness, and availability to create value for others, then keeping eyes open for opportunities is nearly identical with giving people a hand (and being willing to accept some value in return in the form of money – since we’re talking business and sales).

Opportunities that popped up today

I’m currently in the middle of attending a conference, so I went with the goal of finding new opportunities.

Here are a few that I stumbled upon. Most of the opportunities were seed-planting opportunities, but I wouldn’t have noticed them 6 months ago.

  • I met a vendor at the conference whom I thought could benefit from one of my prospect’s products (a software to help mental health professionals who specialize in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). I’d met with this prospect just yesterday, so I approached the vendor and mentioned my prospective client’s software. She immediately recognized the creator’s name and let me in on a secret. My prospect, apparently, is a groundbreaker in the field of behavioral therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders.  I never would have known.
  • Many of the vendors at the conference are national child-serving organizations. I’ve normally considered those who work solely within my state as potential clients. This time through, I’m considering the possibility of serving these national organizations. Why not?
  • I had the opportunity to help encourage a colleague in her sales efforts, uncovering niche opportunities and focuses (at least I was giving it a shot).

Those three items might not seem like a huge deal. But the biggest takeaway for me is the fact that I was being much more intentional than I’ve been in the past.

If I want to 10X my business or if I want to exceed expectations or double revenue in just over 4 months from now, then I must learn how to help and serve more people.

I must be a value creator.

The same goes for you, incidentally. I know this sounds more like a journal entry than a blog post, but you do know that I’m just guinea pigging myself, right?

You, too, should keep your eyes open. Look for opportunities. They’re there. You might not make bags of cash each time, but you’ll be exercising the right muscles.

Let me know what opportunities your ran into today. Leave a note in the comments.

Until tomorrow….

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Reading and Listening Today

 48 Days Podcast: October 17-Nov 7, 2014 

Much of the content above comes from an overflow of power-listening to Dan Miller’s stellar podcast. It’s a special experience listening to 4 or 5 in one day (I had a long commute today).  The concepts and Dan’s creative way of viewing opportunities and shedding our self-imposed limitations make for some powerful car time.

Networking Is Not Working: Stop Collecting Business Cards and Start Making Meaningful Connections – Derek Coburn

My approach at this conference is being informed by Coburn’s book.  His is a wonderfully fresh approach to networking.  

See You at the Top – Zig Ziglar

I’m still making my way through Zig’s book. Today, I got into the chapter around marriage, that if you’re marriage is rough, then everything else will follow suit. My wife thanks you, Mr. Ziglar.

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Finding Blogging and Journalist Influencers

Networking is a great way to meet influencers and spread the word about your business. This method is by no means new, but networking has taken on a slightly different look in the advent of digital media and social networking sites.

Over the last few posts, I’ve been challenged to network for speaking opportunities, network to find influencers to interview, and today, network to develop relationships with journalists and bloggers.

Taken together, these three networking streams form a robust marketing plan.

Today’s Reading and Listening:

Blogger Outreach: How to Build Relationships With Bloggers, Social Media Marketing Podcast from 6/20/14. Host Michael Stelzner and guest Scott Monty.

“Missionary Weapons” – September 11th entry, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. The main point: We can’t wait for big opportunities as moments to exhibit stellar character and ministry chops. It’s in the using of a towel to wash feet. “The very character we exhibit in our present surroundings is an indication of what we will be like in other surroundings.” In other words, our character in the mundane will be even more on display when the chips are down.

Today’s Challenge: Reach Out to Print Influencers, i.e. Bloggers and Journalists

This challenge cannot be done in 15 minutes. I need to peel back my challenges and set aside one full Pomodoro to engage the challenge. This weekend will require some catch-up, I believe.

Here’s my plan (most of this comes directly from the Scott Monty podcast referenced above):

  1. Mindmap potential sources for influencers: Local papers, individual bloggers, online/print trade publications.
  2. Identify their preferred contact method
  3. Develop a pitch or value proposition for each online source: Why in the world do I need to contact them or why would they care for me to talk to them? Do I have a message that is important to them?
  4. Reach out to 5 influencers with a no-strings-attached offer either to feature them or be available as a source if ever needed.
  5. Become a fan: Read their blogs, follow their Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts. Discover what is important to them and use their information to benefit my current and future clients.
  6. Seek opportunities to connect these influencers with their target audience.

I realize that the whole purpose of this challenge is to put ideas to action, not just to create plans.

In my next post, I owe you a reprieve on a new action. Instead, I’m going back to each of these three networking streams and reach out. 

Until tomorrow….

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Building a Network, One Interview at a Time

Doing this challenge is both exhilarating and exhausting. Just wanted to point that out. Now on to today’s post….

Have you ever considered the expertise represented by your prospective (and current) clients?

It seems like in sales that many of us default to this thing where we’re trying to get someone to do something. We talk about adding value, but when the chips are down, we either forget or panic or jump straight to cost and argue why we’re worth said cost.

Adding value in sales (or marketing) is understanding some of the bigger picture and applying your solution in the larger context of the client’s needs and goals.

Learning How to Add Value By Learning from an Untapped Resource of Experts

Today I listened to Michael Stelzner interview John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire.

A light bulb went off above my big old melon: My top prospects are the prospects with the most expertise in my target niche.  If I want to work with the best in the nonprofit world, then more than likely, the best in the nonprofit world have the most wisdom, experience, innovative thought, and pure knowledge of the needs, desires, and wants of nonprofit organizations.

Instead of simply calling up and begging for a meeting to discuss insurance, why not call nonprofit leaders to learn from them?

This turns yesterday’s ‘teaching sells’ idea around (still a great idea, and I’m building my list of prospective teaching, seminar, and workshop possibilities). Instead of offering my experience and knowledge to my target audience, I should be sitting with them and peppering them with questions, and not questions that are directly related to the product I sell.

Action Item: Start Making the List and Reach Out (tomorrow – sorry Dan!)

I liked how John Dumas had his top 20 targeted interviewees selected before he started his Entrepreneur on Fire podcast.

I started a list today and will let it marinate. I’ll begin with some current clients that are extremely sharp and then move onto referrals from them while I develop my interviewing chops. I’m sure my blogging for my day job would benefit from other voices than my own, if only in quote form.

Tomorrow… I shall report here that I selected 30 potential interviewees and reached out to at least 5 of them. I started the list today (which is much more than I would have done 3 weeks ago after listening to the podcast). 

What I Hope to Learn

1. How to ask better questions: If I want to interview the best and the brightest, I better not act like Chris Farley in that SNL bit he used to do… “remember when you, um, Beatlemania… that was awesome”

2. A deeper understanding of nonprofit leadership, without the sales cloud hanging over our heads: Sometimes, the insurance thing can get in the way of a good conversation.

3. What makes high quality nonprofits tick: That’s the main point. And if I can leverage that knowledge to help my other clients, even better.

4. How to better build a network, one interview at a time: One of the key points of the Stelzner – Dumas interview is that in order to build a business, you have to build an audience. My business isn’t as online-based as either Stelzner’s or Dumas’s but any business needs a solid network. By sitting down and interviewing influencers as resources for more well-researched blog posts and other content (perhaps a future podcast), I can build that network.

This project should be fun, if nothing else!

Until tomorrow…

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