Do Business Well

The Clashes arising from differences in most relationships can be managed satisfactorily by this Method. Some conflicts, however, lack certain requirements necessary for success.

Personality Factors

When involved in ‘personality clashes’, we often conclude that the conflict is irresolvable due to the Other’s personality — the Bad-Person Illusion. In truth, certain personality factors can indeed impinge on the Method, making it less effective. So, some relevant personality factors will be mentioned as we list the eight prerequisites. Continue Reading »

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A contact plan describes in specific detail how you will contact prospects and customers over a period of time to meet your specific goals. Each contact plan should contain the following sections:

A Written Contact Strategy

Your contact strategy spells out your goals and describes how ongoing customer communication will be used to meet those goals. When thinking about your contact strategy, be sure to consider the online service imperative. What are you going to offer your existing and prospective customers in exchange for giving you permission to contact them? When Wegmans Food Markets developed its contact strategy, it focused on extending the service and customer-oriented approach that you’ll find in its retail stores to email communication. It has developed a contact strategy that is focused more on delivering relevant content and information than on selling. Its goal is to ensure that it provides its customers with notification of special produce, recipes, health tips, and more in order to simplify their grocery shopping and food preparation tasks. Continue Reading »

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What kinds of things will trigger contact? In some instances you’ll plan and schedule your contacts far in advance (such as annual sales). Others times you’ll be responding to one of the following situations:

• Consumer requests contact. A customer might sign up to receive a personalized monthly newsletter or send an email asking about a new product you’re selling. When a new subscriber signs up for eHarlequin.com’s newsletter program, she immediately receives a welcome message confirming what she’s signed up for and ensuring that she will know how to modify her personal preferences if she should ever decide to change the content she wants to receive. When eBags receives an email inquiry from a customer, a skilled customer service professional looks up any relevant information and answers all My eBags membership, product, or order-related questions by email within 12 to 24 hours. An inbound email from a customer regarding an order the customer would like to return even triggers a series of follow-up emails that are automatically delivered within a few days of each other. These follow- up emails ensure that the customer’s product return is picked up, and that a replacement order is processed satisfactorily.

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‘There is no they, only us.’

Defend your right to be absolutely consistent — even to the point of being boring (but only to yourself).

Of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who phone your prospects, you are probably the only one who is making contact every 90 days or less. You come across as serious and committed. You want the prospect’s business and you have proved it by staying in touch. They can’t help but think that if you manage your business this well, imagine what you could do for them.

What to say next

You may be wondering why, if it’s as simple as consistent contact, everyone else’s business isn’t growing by leaps and bounds. Continue Reading »

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Prospecting

All businesses need customers. Prospecting is the process of looking for suitable candidates to whom you could talk about your product and service. Without prospects your business is like a stream that dries up. Selling is about numbers. The more people you contact, the more sales you will make. Your network’s growth and the money you earn is determined by the amount of time you spend recruiting and training, and the quality of your distributors.

A question that is often asked is: how many prospects must I contact to grow my network? This is hard to answer. As a rule of thumb, it takes about three calls to get an interview. Of those who grant you an interview, about one in four will become a distributor. Out of every four distributors, one will be developing a network. And of those who become active distributors, about one in five will become high-level producers and earners. Continue Reading »

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There are dozens of methods of contacting prospects. The following are the most popular methods:

Over the phone

The quickest and most cost-effective way to get around is by phone. Although this has a down-side — you can’t see the customer, his face or his expressions — the phone should be used to obtain interviews where you can sell the opportunity.

Just bear in mind that a telephone call can be unwelcome. You are intruding on the prospect’s time. So make what you have to say short, relevant and of interest to the prospect. Your phone call must, within seconds, convey a benefit which will be of interest to that prospect.

Do not try to explain networking over the telephone. This rarely works. You want a face-to-face interview lasting just 10 minutes with the prospect to drop off material. If you can obtain that, and the prospect is interested, you can be sure that your appointment will last considerably longer. Continue Reading »

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