Click! Bang! Whiz! Colors! Noises! How often are we advertised to? Think about commercials, online ads, brand logos that we see… According to Red Crow Marketing, most Americans will see between 4000 and 10000 ads per day! Along with these “faceless ads,” retailers are receiving upwards of 200 emails/week of sales professionals asking for time to pitch their product. Adding up the amount of time available per week, and the amount being asked for, we can quickly see the dilemma.
Many of us have had to sell something at some point, be it a product to a buyer, an idea to your boss, a trip with your friends to your significant other… whatever the case, we know it can be difficult. We have a plan, we have our pitch, and in order to sell this to the buyer, we need to make it feel like they will be benefitting from it, often because we benefit from selling it.
There are exceptions; products where a purchase is mutually beneficial. But for a buyer to sift through 200 e-mails/week to find the one that will be beneficial to them and their company can be daunting, if not impossible, and, frankly, not always worth their time.
It is too easy to “get in front” of the decision makers via e-mail, phone calls, and the age old “I’m in town, let’s get coffee.” With everything in life, be patient. Understand that these efforts take time. Because we treat someone well one time, that does not earn us their trust. It takes years of consistent efforts of doing the right thing, being authentic in every interaction, proving you are an expert in the industry, and never expecting anything from your interactions.
That builds trust. You can have the best product, the best meeting, the best intentions, but it takes time. Be willing to put in the time, or consider a career of one-off, transactional relationships without any depth or merit.
We write this because we have been there. And now, thirty+ years later, we have connections from our early days in the industry. Reach out. Let’s talk. We would love to learn something from you, and glad to open up about what we learned in our careers.
Lighthouse Consultants www.lighthouseconsultants.co
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