Get to Know Prospective Commercial Clients Before Asking for Their Business
Any sales professional will tell you that the easiest person on which to call is someone you know or with whom you have some sort of connection.
With that said, when building your commercial accounts business, get to know the people you’ll be meeting with at the potential client company before you actually go there and present yourself and your services to them.
In my last column, we discussed learning a company’s products as a great way to get the attention of a prospective client. However, in addition to that, there are other steps you can take.
I believe there are two types of sales calls: cold calls and warm calls. And a warm sales call is far superior – it’s where you’ve already crossed paths at a previous event with the person with whom you’re meeting, you’ve been referred by a mutual acquaintance, or you at least know something about the person’s background.
One of the keys to being a successful salesperson is being involved in community organizations. The first thing I did when I decided to break into the commercial laundry world was to get involved with the local business association and chamber of commerce.
Meeting people and getting yourself introduced through such organizations is a great way to get involved and to set up warm sales calls. You get to know the people a little bit beforehand, so that you have something in common when you meet about your laundry service.
Another step I’ve taken to make my commercial sales calls “warmer” is joining a networking group. I chose BNI; however, there are other ones that are a bit less formal. I’ve received great referrals and leads from this group. Yes, it requires a bit of a time commitment – with BNI, for instance, every week I have to prepare a short presentation about my commercial laundry service. But these presentations have made me a better salesperson, because I’m learning about my service, and I’m selling a different aspect of it every week.
These groups and organizations are great tools as you start to build your commercial accounts business.
However, let’s say you’ve landed a sales call with a company in your neighborhood, but you just haven’t found a way to make a connection with them. A great tool for such situations is the internet.
The first thing you should always do is go to Google and the business’ website to research that company. Next, I’d suggest consulting what I consider to be a secret weapon for today’s salespeople – LinkedIn. At this site, you can search by company, as well as by product type.
In addition, LinkedIn will tell you who the key people are at the company in question, and it will provide you some clues as to what those people have done professionally. Typically, on LinkedIn, you can view someone’s employment history and educational background – and some people even post their personal interests on their profiles.
To prepare for a sales call, I’ll try to dig into people’s interests to see if we have anything in common. And I’ll also look to see if we have friends in common; if so, I’ve occasionally gone so far as to reach out to those friends to try to make an initial introduction. It’s a longer process, but it’s always easier to make a sales call when you’re meeting someone based on a recommendation – especially if that person is being bombarded by salespeople on a daily basis.
Recently, I landed a huge college laundry deal via LinkedIn. I was trying to find the right person to talk to about my college laundry programs. The first person I reached out to was not the correct person; however, that person was able to direct me to the key decision-maker – and with a very warm introduction, I might add. Basically, I sold one person on my service, which made it easier for me to sell the second person. With larger deals like those, you often have to go through multiple layers of management and contacts.
All in all, joining local business associations, participating in networking groups and doing some digging on the internet can give you an edge when it comes to turning cold calls into slightly warmer calls.
#CommercialAccounts #Article #TheLaundryDoctor #PlanetLaundry #Public
