What I’m about to share with you ISN’T an innovative “I’ve never heard that before” sales tip but;
Whether you’re hearing something for the first time or you’ve heard something a million times and you’re NOT doing it, then it really doesn’t matter, right?
With that in mind, here goes . . .
Whether you have alerts set up for potential clients or you still manually search potential clients one at a time watch for “icebreakers” Note: You obviously need to watch for other things too but today, we’re focusing on “icebreakers”.
An “icebreaker” is anything you can use to warm up an interaction, start a conversation and on a much grander scheme, STAND OUT!
Examples
Someone who was just promoted
Someone who just joined a company
Expansion
A New Contract Won
Work Anniversaries
Birthdays
Product Launches
A Cool Write Up About Your Prospect or Their Company
Once you find the “icebreaker” do the following . . .
1) Send them a card (I use a branded “blank card”. If you’d like for me to send you one, email your mailing address to me and I’ll mail you one paul@yoursalesplaybook.com ) Make sure you include a handwritten note and don’t you dare use this as an excuse to include a “SALESY” message.
2) Schedule your next two touches in your CRM. Not being a wise ass but this requires a little bit of thinking, thinking that most of us fail to do when we just react to the alert without premeditating the “touch”
Let me give you an actual example of how I mapped my communication with a potential client.
I’m reading an industry publication and I see that Mary Jones is now the new VP of Sales at ABC Widgets
Here’s what I mapped.
Touch 1 Send one of my blank cards with a handwritten congratulatory note.
Touch 2 (1-2 days) after she received the note, I send an email congratulating her again and mentioning that I will be calling her in the next few days as I have a few things for her (no strings attached) that I’m confident she will find useful. I offer some scheduling options.
Note: This one comes with an “If/Then” clause meaning If Mary responds, then I simply execute my the phone call I’ve planned. If she doesn’t then I go to a different 3rd touch.
In this case, Mary responded with a really cool “Thank you for that card Paul and I’d be happy to chat with you”
As we all know, many times, it WON’T play out this way and that’s when we create a map for our next 3 “touches” with an all caps NOTE TO SELF to change up the types of “touches”.
Here’s The Long Winded Point
The handwritten card serves as a major part of this “Communication Map” My guess, is that counting my handwritten card, Mary received only one of these!
At the very least, I’ve become memorable enough to avoided the dreaded “Paul who?” when I pick up the phone to introduce myself.
How To Initiate 500 Of These Without Really Trying
Send out two of these cards, each day. It doesn’t take long and you can write them out before or after hours, in your hotel room or on your next flight.
Do this and inside of a week, you’ll have set yourself apart with 10 potential clients.
Inside of a month, you’ll have expanded your reach to 40 potential clients.
At the end of a year, 500.
You’re welcome!
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