Greg's Right FIT #555–This week: Introductions, Orienting, Humidity

Quick notes to help you find new business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.

In this issue: 

• Thoughts about Introductions
• Being Human
• Random Stuff
• Back In The Day

Thoughts about Introductions

• The first place to look for new business is inside your current business. Just as interesting people tend to hang out with other interesting people, your next referral is hanging out with current customers. Attend an event with them and ask for introductions. 
• Organize our days based on starting or completing a few key tasks. It's a lot to go get a million dollar client on Monday. It's a little to set aside 20 minutes and reach out to an existing contact for introductions.
• Don't be a best kept secret. Some customers we are helping want to keep us to themselves, especially in competitive industries. Get past this by asking for "introductions" instead of referrals. Publicize anonymous results. Share stories.
• Teaching vendors to identify new contacts for our services is a great way to expand prospecting efforts. Unlike the other bullets here, using vendors for introductions doesn't work as well. It's all about the money flow. But that's another story. For now, just ask your vendors for names.

Being Human – Using their words

"If One Is Truly to Succeed in Leading a Person to a Specific Place, One Must First and Foremost Take Care to Find Him Where He is and Begin There."
– S. Kirkegaard

Prospecting into larger sales opportunities isn't the easiest thing to find literature on. There are books upon books about what to do once you have someone interested, but getting them interested drifts away from sales into marketing. There are plenty of marketing books, but the challenge with that content is it isn't written by salespeople. This means it focuses on strategies and tactics the average salesperson doesn't have access to. (because it's the domain of marketing).

What can be done?

For starters, when we get an audience with leadership who can prioritize budget, we can't talk about our solutions in much detail. When senior leaders hear details about solutions they delegate. We don't mind being delegated to managers because when the boss says talk to this salesperson they will. However, we do mind talking to managers and not having a business case to refer back to. Before we get delegated to the other buyers in our sales process we need to know what the client is trying to do. We need it in their words, using their metrics, in their timeframe, and with their internal valuations. That's why we want to stay away from detailed descriptions of our solutions at first.

How do we stay out of solutions but still describe what we do so as not to waste important people's time? One technique is to start by describing what your firm does in broad terms, giving a high level example of what that work looks like, then offering to give an example of what it might look like for them. All they need to do is share some of their coming year's goals.

Re-reading what I just typed it sounds a little vague. To make it clearer, tell me what your firm does and I'll give you an example using your details.

(see what I did there?)

Random Stuff

"Where'd you get that tshirt?"

Last year, as I was suffering through our humid summer, I looked at the weather app on my phone and saw Dew Point listed. I looked it up and found the chart below. My town is consistently in the Uncomfortable to Miserable range in the summer and you learn to live with it. People get sweaty.

Sweatiness is a problem for me. I break into a sweat after a brisk walk up the stairs. It used to be one of my superpowers in sports. One or two sprints and I'd be drenched. The coaches would scream, "why can't you all work hard like Chambers?" while my dry pink cheeked teammates suffered.

As a sweaty guy, my choice of clothing is important. Some shirts hide the sweat, others not so much. I think about this before heading out into the sauna.

Last Friday, we took a walk up to a taco place nearby. I looked at the weather and it was not too hot. Eighty as I recall. Dropping into the low seventies after sunset. I changed into khakis and a polo and looked at the dew point. Seventy four. I looked outside. So calm. A little breeze. Should I change into a dark shirt and shorts? Nah. I'll be alright, I thought.

I was not alright.

Before we made it a quarter mile I felt the Mickey Mouse stain forming. (where my shirt touches the moobs become ears, where it touches my belly is the face) By the time we reach the restaurant, I'm soaked. My shirt is soaked. When I sit my greenish khakis turn dark. I'm a mess. My lovely bride? She's glowing. Not a bead of sweat to be found.

We ordered margaritas and I add a tshirt. Preferably black, definitely size XL. I don't care if it says, "Got Margs?" or "I ❤️ Puffy Tacos", at least it will hide the sweat stains.

The margaritas arrived, the tacos arrived, another round of margs, but no tshirt. The XL killed it. Other big guys beat me to the punch. By the time we were done with dinner I looked dry. Or dry-ish.

That is how I avoided having to come up with an answer to, "where'd you get that tshirt" last Friday.

Back in the Day

What I was thinking about last year, five years ago, and ten years ago.

• Last Year: Right FIT #503 – Ok. Sometimes I crack myself up. The livestock watching the others get branded made me laugh out loud. I don't think anyone even noticed! (if they did, I didn't get any notes) I mean, even the caption "Cowboys convincing cattle to accept their ROI" makes me smile. Sigh.
• Five Years Ago: Right FIT #294 – One of my tossaway thoughts on routines and money. It's amazing how much energy is spent pursuing money, especially in the USA. My eldest just moved to Europe and has noticed a difference. A friend moved away decades ago and said the same thing. Life is short and capitalism wants you to make the most of it. . .for capitalism. Something about balance should be inserted here.
• Ten Years Ago: Right FIT #32 – Reading this I forgot about my early attempts to do events. I tried promos, ads, calls, postcards, you name it. I held a few lunch and learns that attendees found useful, but it was the breakfast events that really worked. The funny thing is they didn't require me to do much for preparation or content. You'd think that would mean I would do more, and you would be wrong. I just talk about it more.