Influencers from Around the World - Split Second Selling

If you've been a reader of Influence PEOPLE for any length of time Sean Patrick is a familiar name to you. Sean is my good friend from Ireland who is in the sales training arena like I am. Sean is going to give you insight into Split Second Selling in this month's Influencers from Around the World Series.

If you'd like get to know Sean there are many ways: visit his website, Sean Patrick Training, take a look at his blog, Professional Persuader, or look for him on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Brian, CMCT
influencepeopleHelping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Split Second Selling

Whether you know me as a sales trainer or not doesn't matter, what matters is whether you're reading this to be entertained, to see how laughable the content is or to scan read for a take-away that you can implement into your daily routine.

As some of you know, I write my own blog and articles for various other blogs. I am often asked to write for other people. And if you already follow me then you'll know the content I deliver is very “niche,” to the point and content rich. This one is going to be a little different. In fact this article is going to nail one point directly and very firmly on the head in a simple, easy to grasp language that even a non-English speaking tourist from Mars could understand.

This little nugget is highly effective for people who cold call or who have to prospect for a living. As some of you already know, I am a hardened prospector and very much a relationship type of sales guy. For those of you who sit on the same bench as me, you're in for a serious free money making and kick-ass tip you're going to want to use. You'd be hard pushed to actually find a social media trainer who would know how to teach you this. Read on for what I believe is a very important tip about LinkedIn!

Here’s how to use LinkedIn and get appointments so you can exponentially close more business by using reciprocity.

1. Target your contacts; e.g., HR, FD, CEO, CIO, etc.
2. Research your contacts perceived pain points and vertical market trends
3. Grab a piece of paper and write out a quick two sentence introduction that you can insert into the friend request that is relevant to person and pain point (hence the research)
4. Now think about what you can give to them that is relevant to your research in order for them to increase the likelihood of saying YES to your following request.
5. Send friend requests to each and every contact you wish to do business with while ensuring you insert your offer to give in order to receive; e.g., Whitepaper, invitation to a breakfast briefing but make sure the gift is relevant.
6. When you have identified your new contacts (the ones that came back to you), repeat, but this time asking for their work email address. See examples below of how I use this effectively and tell them you have more important information to share. By this time, this is when I start receiving DDI and cell numbers to have actual selling conversations, but go to the next step when this doesn't happen for you.
7. Once I have sent at least two emails to my target contacts, I then proceed to call those contacts that hadn't come back to me. I remind them on the call that I am the person who sent them valuable information that I thought pertinent to share with them and ask them straight out when they can book a time to either see me or commit to a phone call. Before I end the call, I repeat our next appointment out loud and ask them for the last time if this is definitely OK with them.

Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about.

Are you interested to find out how companies who have discovered X, have benefited from Y that has given them Z. Please add me if interested

I would like to offer you a white paper on how companies like yours have benefitted from X! Please add me if you want to learn how. Please ignore if not appropriate or add me to find out.

I'm currently networking with people similar to you that work within your vertical because I can give you new information on how to X that results in Y.

Just a quick note to point out that our objective is not to increase our LinkedIn network, although this will happen anyway. Our objective is to get to the person we want to sell to, either face to face or via the phone. This little tip is a cold call “killer!” Now, for those of you people who are lucky enough to be in the B2C space, this same principle works even better and without the need for LinkedIn.

Whenever you make a cold call, frame your call so that you are there to help the other person, recognise their voice patterns if they are harassed or busy, and tell them you can give them a couple of days to think about it. Then tell them how they can help you either by referring you to others or by finding out if they actually need to buy from you. You know what it's like to be frazzled and hassled and can call back in two days time in order to help them out.

Repeat above method of gaining commitment by gaining mutual agreement before the call is ended.

Voila, no cold calls, thanks to Mr. Cialdini and his fabulous principle of reciprocity with a little dose of commitment and consistency thrown in for good measure.

Sean

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Brian, CMCT