By Dave Wells Whether you are the rain-maker in a small firm, a sales representative, or responsible for a national sales force, its in your best interest to branch out and create alternative ways to reach perspective customers. Having multiple marketing streams is the life-blood of any lead generation and lead nurturing program. But dont count on your companys marketing department to do it for you, its not their job to promote you the sales person theyre supposed to promote the company. Many rain-makers that I know earn well into the 6 and 7 figures. They know what they are good at and they keep to it. It makes sense but the problem is that by focusing on only one or two ways of generating business, it limits their ability to make even more money for their company and themselves. So how do you turn todays salesperson into tomorrows rain-maker? I think companies need to reevaluate how they look at their sales team and how they should be deployed in their sales process. They need to go beyond the limiting aspects of established territories, industry verticals, or product focus and begin to allow the sales person to become special ambassadors mini CEOs if you will, with their own sales, marketing and promotional strategies and systems. Here are the critical areas for becoming a well-rounded rain-maker that will boost your ability to earn more income for the company and for yourself: Self-Branding. You need to become known for something. Go out and create a platform from which you can tie your views into the product or service that you are offering. Most people dont know this, but no matter what suit Gary Cooper wore in public, he always wore green socks. Im noticing today that the bow-tie is making a come back for guests on national news networks. These gimmicks may get you noticed but they wont give you shelf-life. Im thinking more in line with my friend Manny Sanchez, Managing Partner of Sanchez & Daniels, the second largest minority-owned law firm in America. He considers himself the Latino Ambassador for issues and trends that he knows are important to his Fortune 100 clients. The CEOs of these companies rely on him to give them insight into this growing lucrative market. He has created a platform that gets him, and his firm, noticed. Corporate Branding. A rain-maker want-to-be should focus their branding efforts for their specific sales area. They will take out ads themselves if their company doesnt do it. o Sponsorships - Strategic hand-outs that provide money for events, underwriting newsletters, other corporate outings, or even associations can go a long way. While helping USWeb/CKS grow their revenues, we gave out golf umbrellas that had their logo on it at an industry golf outing. It was a hot sunny day. Many people invited to golf outings arent really golfers - we became heroes to those prospects that really needed the shade. Nobody talked about any of the other trinkets that other companies gave out. o Advertising - Advertise where your prospects lurk. Online: buy banners on association and exposition sites before the big event, or at industry magazine sites. Look into broadcast advertising and print advertising. I know a real estate rain-maker here in Chicago. He worked out a deal with a billboard company. Instead of buying just one billboard for 12 months, he worked with them to place his advertisement when they had contracts expire. The result netted him staggered one-month exposures on 12 different billboards all throughout the city of Chicago his market. He paid for it himself. The ads created a huge buzz and a 5:1 return on investment. Networking/Referral. This is where most rain-makers spend the majority of their time. Its extremely effective, but its also the major reason so many of them are missing other potential prospects. You cant reach everyone by networking. Focus on networking with: o Clients Your clients are the most influential salespeople for your company. They can lead you into wonderful new accounts simply by making the introduction. I recommend that your client, your prospect, and you, meet together at the first meeting. Your clients are also the first people you should sell/network with when you launch a new product. My friend Bill Rancic did that when he was on his way to winning the first Trump Apprentice. After his team created a client base for one of their tasks he went back to those same relationships to sell to or get referrals from those clients. His team won both tasks and he went on to win the game. o Alliances Take a good look at how else you can leverage contacts into revenue generating relationships. Look into current partners, vendors, opinion molders, authors, and experts. o Channel Partners - When I was growing a software services company, one of the rain-maker areas included establishing relationships with hardware sales reps. I bought them lunch at their team meetings and showed how I could help present business solutions to their prospects (ultimately my prospects too) that would help sell their hardware and made sure my reps went with them at any part of the sales cycle. It was truly win-win-win. o Friends/Groups I network with people but my outlook is not quid-pro-quo. Recently I helped the COO of a software company help his business associate help his son try to get an internship (did you follow that?). I put the college student in touch with an extremely influential person in my network. Ive made the introduction and Im not sure what will come of the internship thats out of my hands now. But as a result the COO wants to do business with me and my company, unsolicited. This happens time and time again. By the way, I even took the time to coach the student. We discussed what to say, how to say it, and how to follow up with calls and thank you cards. Phone Calls. Phone calls are very important. I believe everyone should do about 30 45 minutes a day of pure cold calling just to keep sharp. Any more and youll be headed for burnout. Most of my calls I try to turn into warm calls in some way. Usually its through using every one of the tips in this newsletter, and more, to gain a warmer reception to my calls. For the rest of the day, phone work should be used to develop relationships once youve met your prospect in some other way. Calling can be used to confirm contact information and to do cross-marketing. Email. No I dont support SPAM. Make sure you understand the wording of the law. For the most part as long as the message in your email serves your prospect, has a viable street address, contact name and phone number, and provides a link for the prospect to get removed from the list, you should be okay. o One-to-Many Create an electronic newsletter such as this to communicate with prospects and clients. Send out announcements with a link to take anonymous polls located at your web site or by using sites like www.zoomerang.com. Its a great way to share content quickly. o One-to-One Create templates for yourself and your sales team. This is a great way to brand yourself. I make sure that my picture goes out whenever it makes sense. It gets me recognized at conferences and expositions. People see me coming before I even see them and they make it a point to say hello. Events. Yes you should make it out to the biggest events for your industry. Even if you dont have a booth, you should reserve a table for 20 at a restaurant and invite clients and prospects to join you. o Seminars Create your own. Youre supposed to have the gift of gab your listening skills should be even better and exercised more than talking however but what better way to make your pitch than one to many? It doesnt have to be elaborate. If you sell to industrial park CEOs reserve a room at the local restaurant and buy your prospects lunch. Establish the menu up front so that it fits your budget but allows prospects a small selection. Make your presentation to them at the luncheon. I know ran-makers that also do this at the Union League Club. o Workshops Get the rest of your company involved in delivering information to your clients and prospects. o Webseminar or Webinar Video record one of your seminars and post it to your web site. Studies show that if you can deliver content when its convenient to your client or prospect, youll have a better hit rate than making them all register and go to their computers at a specific time. o Teleseminar Technology is such that you can record a sales presentation and make it available to your prospects and clients via the phone. There are companies that will let you set up a conference call that your prospects can dial in to. Record it and re market it on your web site or offer it as a giveaway on CD. o Conferences/Tradeshows Show up when you can. Work with industry reporters that will be there and see if there is some way you can help them with newsworthy articles. Make sure you have a plan for getting names, pre-qualifying them and make sure you have a system for following up with prospects. Marketing statistics prove that nearly 90% of all leads do not get a follow up call. Create your own web site or start a weblog blog. Even if you work for a large company you should have your own web page. Get your company to add a few pages for you. If they wont do it then they are not working in your best interest. Go online and get your own web domain setup. Create a few pages that will help to establish your expertise and credibility. Post your articles, post podcasts or webcasts so that your prospects can view them at their convenience thats key. Give them the kind of content that they are looking for such as helpful links. Promote it to your prospects, industry experts, customers, reporters, etc. as a place to get up to date information. o Site design Make it simple and easy to navigate. Let them download information from the site. You can build a prospect database if they give you a name and email address. Test to see if more prospects download without having to give you an email. Latest tests show that requiring a visitor to give up information dramatically reduces downloads. o SEO Search Engine Optimization. Make everything easy to find. Use pay-per-click techniques. Make sure you make all copy on the site and in your download information searchable by key words from your prospects. Lead Nurturing. There are two approaches in this area: o Execution Vehicles these are talked about in other sections of this newsletter such as events, direct mail, email, phone, etc. o Content Creating Creating content that establishes you, the rain-maker, as an expert is where you will leave your competition behind. This is where you make your intelligence shine. Newsletters, press releases, articles with links to your site, case studies, white papers, and special reports are just some of the ways that set you a part and build your credibility. These are the ways the rain-maker promotes him or her self. This information can then be easily repurposed into other promotional efforts. Public Relations. o Write editorials for your local paper or trade magazines. o Public speaking - industry and association events. o Create your own speaking engagements whenever possible. o Strive to become a keynote speaker. o Article placement write articles and get them published in newspapers, magazines, or online. o Press releases make an effort to get at least one release out per month. Find ways to make what you do newsworthy. o Promote yourself as an industry expert to the TV, cable, and radio media. Try to be the local angle to national news stories. o Make friends with reporters and the media in your area of expertise. It takes time but those that keep at it are the ones that get articles written about them and their companies. Direct Mail. Yes direct mail works. Create a campaign that will turn cold calls into warm calls. o Dimensional Mail 3-D mailings work very well. Who doesnt want to open something they got in the mail that looks like a present? Make sure your list is clean and accurate or you will waste money. And have a phone, email, and fax follow up program to increase your response rates. o Self Mailer Have your prospect mail something in to show they are interested in your product or service. o Postcards Use them to remind reporters about your expertise. Keep the message the same repetition breeds success. Prospects will see your message. Most people at least look at the post card compared to never opening junk mail envelopes. Even if you are a sales rep for a fortune 500 company, I know your marketing department is not creating this kind of credibility for you specifically thats not their job. By employing these ideas you will create the momentum of future sales and everyone in the company will be asking you how you do it. David Wells, Founder of http://www.emdco.com, a provider of business-to-business lead creation, data confirmation and integrated marketing solutions. Subscribe to “The Business-to-Business Sales Strategist’s Tips of the Week” ezine at http://www.emdco.com/registernow.html. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_Wells http://EzineArticles.com/?Secrets-of-a-Well-Rounded-Rainmaker&id=168880 buy tramadol cod online what is ultram prescription 50mg buy ultram medication order ultram
