Stop Selling & Start Creating Heroes – Part 2: A hero is born

Posted on February 28, 2012 by stcroixinsights

Last week, we discussed the process of ceasing selling in favor of creating and maintaining positive, functional relationships. (Click hear to read Part 1). This week, we’re going to expand on that concept and show how instead of relying solely on your own selling techniques, you’re actually equipping and inspiring clients and people you meet to act as ambassadors on your behalf.

When creating heroes it is a little bit more difficult to stay the course, because the fruits of your labors aren’t immediate at all. You might not even see the results for a few months to just within a year, and when you’re starting out, it takes longer and the snowball moves more slowly. However, you must be prepared for this, and stand your ground. Provided you are actually following the four ground rules we laid last week, clients will be forthcoming.

However, the crucial element in any relational marketing strategy is turning those clients into heroes. This process is a bit trickier, because it is essentially not a process at all, but an integrated part of the way you conduct yourself and your business. Then, you have to empower your heroes with both information and permission.

First, your heroes need the following information before they can go out and share you with their circles.

They need to know:

Who you are,
What you do,
How you can be of assistance to someone they know (who you work best with),
Who you are unable to help (and in what situations), and
The benefits to them and to their introduction (tangible and intangible).

Once your heroes are equipped with this information, you simply need to make sure that they are aware of not only your permission, but your encouragement for them to share you with all of their friends, neighbors, relatives, mail carrier, and more! This basically involves having that difficult conversation, the ask. This can be as specific as asking for an introduction to an individual that you know they know well, or as general as letting them know that you would appreciate them sharing what you’ve done for them with someone that could equally benefit from your services.

Have you experienced this in your practice? If you have heroes, how did you go about “the ask”?

Stop Selling & Start Creating Heroes – Part 1: STOP SELLING!

Posted on February 21, 2012 by stcroixinsights

Midway through first quarter is often the point where you realize that the goals you’ve established for yourself and your business are either picking up steam or the dreaded alternative, something is not quite clicking. After all of the careful planning and work you put into setting your goals and following through, why aren’t the results materializing? You’ve been on the trail, wooing prospects, but closed sales just aren’t happening.

Well, stop selling! The days of salesperson esteem are over, and people no longer desired being sold anything. Acting as transfer agents in the exchange of essential commodities for money is viewed as distasteful at best. People want relationships in which they can participate. Therefore, you should give them what they want and develop relationships further, creating brand ambassadors and heroes for your products and services.

This is not as simple as it sounds, because it requires considerable effort on your part. Engrained patterns of sales-y behavior usually run deep. However, we’ve outlined four tenets below that are key in ending your career as a salesperson.

1. You must be authentic.

This requires an inherent belief in both yourself and your offerings that is obvious and transparent to your clients.

2. Your products and/or services must actually benefit your clients by solving a need.

If there is no tangible value-added proposition for your offerings, you will not succeed in your endeavors.

3. You must be able to engage your prospects.

Your interactions and communication with your prospects and clients need to not just include them, but also provide a forum for their voices to be heard. The Greek philosopher, Epictetus, famously quoted, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

4. You must repeat the previous three tenets again and again.

Long after the dust has settled from a great interaction or even a “sale”, you should already be in the process of authentically engaging your clients and prospects, ensuring there’s value for them in every interaction. (In fact, this process should be ceaseless).

Have you made the transition from salesperson? How did you move through the process? Did the four points outlined above factor into your personal equation?

Stay tuned for next week, as we take these four tenets further and begin discussing hero generation.

Keep That Blog Engine Running!

Posted on February 14, 2012 by stcroixinsights

We all know how difficult it can be to stay on the wagon with blogging. You start your blog with a lot of gumption and fanfare, posting a few times a week, sharing your posts, and seeking out interaction from all of your contacts. A few months later, life and business creep in, and before you know it, your blog engine has run out of steam!

Well, don’t let that happen! A little bit of planning and work at the front-end can avoid setting yourself up for failure, sending your blog to the internet graveyard.

Tip #1 – Create an Editorial Calendar – If you’re not an Excel whiz, don’t worry. There are plenty of free templates online that are just a Google search away. The purpose of an editorial calendar is to organize all of your content and map out your plan for posts.

This can also work really well with all of your marketing content. Instead of thinking just post to post, really centralize around the idea of concepts, or themes. Brainstorm about what concepts you want to talk about. Think about your audience. What will be on their minds? Case in point, we try to focus on pertinent concepts that we know may be in the forefront of our readers’ minds at the time each post will be published. Taxes at year-end, college planning during the graduation season, etc. are all great central themes for your editorial calendar.

Map out as much as you feel comfortable while still leaving openings to be flexible with new developments. We try to map out the entire year with editorial themes, but then leave leeway when it comes to the content itself).

Tip #2 – Google Alerts – If you’re unfamiliar with Google Alerts, run, do not walk, your mouse over to Google and type in ‘alerts’. By creating a Google Alert for a particular name, phrase, or concept, you are essentially creating your own personal search service. Let’s say that you want to write some blog posts about the Minnesota Vikings. (I know, I know, you probably wouldn’t do that this season), but let’s say you did.

So you go to http://www.google.com/alerts and either log into your Google account (so that you can manage your alerts) or simply enter your e-mail. You would then enter “Minnesota Vikings” and then you may select type, frequency of delivery, and volume. Once you click ‘Create Alert’, you’re set! Depending on your preferences, you’ll begin receiving new news, other blogs, events, and content all related to the alert topic.

This is a great way to keep your blog engine running, as you continue to obtain new information and the latest news on any topic for which you create an alert. You may think that you’ve said all you can say and responded about everything related to a given topic until you receive an alert that highlights your topic in a whole new light.

What do you think? Do you use an editorial calendar or Google Alerts? Are they effective tools?