Sales/Marketing Tip
Bought and Paid For
I attend a lot of business functions: professional meetings, awards events, community groups, etc. Sometimes it's great fun. Sometimes it's dreadfully dull. It almost always involves eating chicken and listening to speakers of widely varying abilities from waxing eloquence to narcolepsy-inducing monotony. Topics range from the truly fascinating, through who-cares to take-me-off-the respirator. I have occasionally been assaulted with PowerPoint. I bear this burden/enjoy this experience because these events are great places to meet people and meeting people is what it's all about in
sales. It seems that many people share my sentiments. The calendar is loaded with opportunities to hob-nob with others. Many of these events attract hundreds of people. Business owners attend and they often send their people as well. Even people who are not, strictly speaking, salespeople can be found. Obviously, people want to meet people.
Since all this meeting is happening during the business day, my guess is that it has a business purpose. Surely, the attendees are "on the clock". That means that the company is paying real money for them to have lunch. In fact, they are paying twice: once in salary and once by incurring the cost of the event. This is expensive time, but well worth it if it results in new business.
This is where it gets confusing.
Here are some of the strange things that I have recently observed:
1. Large groups of employees from the same company sitting together. This is of course acceptable at an awards ceremony when the purpose is celebrating the team. It's downright weird anywhere else.
2. People who sit down and begin eating during the networking portion of the event.
3. People who come late or leave early, leaving themselves no time to meet anyone.
4. People whose conversation skills and demeanor send the message: "I couldn't care less about you".
All of the above defeat the purpose of sending people to events in the first place. Presumably the business incurs the expense of these excursions with the idea of flying the flag, making positive impressions, establishing new relationships and sometimes even setting appointments with qualified prospects.
Some salespeople (but fewer than one might imagine) know how to do these things. Almost none of the non-sales employees have a clue.
Everyone who ventures forth into the world of reworking represents the company that they work for. They make impressions for better or worse. Indeed, each and every employee has the opportunity to bird dog for new customers. Often the non-salespeople can be better at this than the salespeople because they are less threatening. In these difficult economic times it's a sin that these opportunities are so often wasted because people don't know that it's part of their job (it had better be) or they don't know how to do it. It's cheap and easy to teach non-salespeople to be effective networkers and feed your company a much needed supply of leads. They don't have to sell. All they have to do is sniff out opportunities and offer to make the appropriate introductions or identify the right people to call.
Since you're paying for them to represent your company at these events, the training you do to make them effective will likely be some of the best money you ever spend.
Mark Fitzgerald, Sales Training Institute, Inc., Tampa, Florida provides this column weekly. Mr. Fitzgerald provides both group and customized sales training for professionals and companies. For more information, please contact him by telephone at 813-831-5555, via email at mark@saleskills.com or visit www.saleskills.com.
Bought and Paid For
I attend a lot of business functions: professional meetings, awards events, community groups, etc. Sometimes it's great fun. Sometimes it's dreadfully dull. It almost always involves eating chicken and listening to speakers of widely varying abilities from waxing eloquence to narcolepsy-inducing monotony. Topics range from the truly fascinating, through who-cares to take-me-off-the respirator. I have occasionally been assaulted with PowerPoint. I bear this burden/enjoy this experience because these events are great places to meet people and meeting people is what it's all about in
sales. It seems that many people share my sentiments. The calendar is loaded with opportunities to hob-nob with others. Many of these events attract hundreds of people. Business owners attend and they often send their people as well. Even people who are not, strictly speaking, salespeople can be found. Obviously, people want to meet people.
Since all this meeting is happening during the business day, my guess is that it has a business purpose. Surely, the attendees are "on the clock". That means that the company is paying real money for them to have lunch. In fact, they are paying twice: once in salary and once by incurring the cost of the event. This is expensive time, but well worth it if it results in new business.
This is where it gets confusing.
Here are some of the strange things that I have recently observed:
1. Large groups of employees from the same company sitting together. This is of course acceptable at an awards ceremony when the purpose is celebrating the team. It's downright weird anywhere else.
2. People who sit down and begin eating during the networking portion of the event.
3. People who come late or leave early, leaving themselves no time to meet anyone.
4. People whose conversation skills and demeanor send the message: "I couldn't care less about you".
All of the above defeat the purpose of sending people to events in the first place. Presumably the business incurs the expense of these excursions with the idea of flying the flag, making positive impressions, establishing new relationships and sometimes even setting appointments with qualified prospects.
Some salespeople (but fewer than one might imagine) know how to do these things. Almost none of the non-sales employees have a clue.
Everyone who ventures forth into the world of reworking represents the company that they work for. They make impressions for better or worse. Indeed, each and every employee has the opportunity to bird dog for new customers. Often the non-salespeople can be better at this than the salespeople because they are less threatening. In these difficult economic times it's a sin that these opportunities are so often wasted because people don't know that it's part of their job (it had better be) or they don't know how to do it. It's cheap and easy to teach non-salespeople to be effective networkers and feed your company a much needed supply of leads. They don't have to sell. All they have to do is sniff out opportunities and offer to make the appropriate introductions or identify the right people to call.
Since you're paying for them to represent your company at these events, the training you do to make them effective will likely be some of the best money you ever spend.
Mark Fitzgerald, Sales Training Institute, Inc., Tampa, Florida provides this column weekly. Mr. Fitzgerald provides both group and customized sales training for professionals and companies. For more information, please contact him by telephone at 813-831-5555, via email at mark@saleskills.com or visit www.saleskills.com.
