The Sweet Spot For Selling Services

Integrated action seals the deal.

Want to fast-track results in a business development venture? Want to step up your rainmaking timeline? Want to leverage your sales skills, marketing know-how and networking panache? The secret to impacting your success in sealing multiple deals lies in your ability to take integrated action in each of four key domains simultaneously. Imagine a Venn diagram with four equal circles, that all cross at one central point. The four circles include Networking, Marketing, PR, and Sales. We all know the real estate mantra: “location, location, location”. Here’s one to consider for your role: “integrate, integrate, integrate”. Lots of us have trouble integrating action in these four key areas because we have clouded the distinctions between them. Not to mention the critical mindsets or beliefs we have about each and the ways in which we get in our own way.

Below is a brief run-down of the distinctions. Identify your current mindsets and assess if they are supporting your growth sufficiently to achieve your goals. As you explore the following distinctions, ask yourself these questions: What am I already doing in this area? What else could I be doing? What percentage of my time is spent in each? Where have I collapsed these distinctions? Where and how might I integrate my activities across all four domains? What would the impact and value be if I were to generate a quantum leap in my rainmaking results?

1. Networking is the relational piece. It is connecting with others for the purpose of sharing resources, information, leads, referrals, ideas, etc. Cultivating a working network of relationships is crucial to your business development system, but in and of itself will not be the way you build or expand your client base. True networking involves connection-seeking with genuine interest in others. You are building your pipeline, meeting people who may or may not be directly linked to your business development strategy. You’re getting out there and creating relationships of all kinds, and expanding your circle by asking others to introduce you to people that they know. You’re sharing your network with others and introducing people to each other who might be of service or interest. You’re engaging in the Nine Mindsets of Networking (it’s a game, connection-seeking, partnering, up front agendas, authentic curiosity, six degrees of separation, climate of comfort, giver’s gain, and ongoing action). Networking is casting a wide open net, involving everyone, and going beyond collecting business cards to creating authentic relationships with real human beings.

2. Marketing is the preparation element. Marketing is how you prepare yourself to take your unique identity package, your irresistible offer, and your message to market. This involves a lot of strategy, design work, writing, and outreach, but those things alone will not get you the clients you want. Marketing includes branding and the creation of a sustainable, consistent, recognizable uniqueness. It is those activities that yield informative materials and other stuff to hand out or direct people to so that they can learn about you, your company, or your offering. Documents, speeches, advertising, promotional materials, image and collateral elements (logo, letterhead, business cards, websites, brochures), writing letters, researching clients and prospects, or anything that you do to position yourself as an expert falls under this domain. Marketing is when you plan activities, strategies, and conceptual approaches to either acquire, retain, or re-acquire buyers.

3. Public Relations is linked to marketing because your image and messaging impacts your brand. PR involves anything you do with the media and press. It can be either proactive or reactive. Managing your presence in the public eye even without a crisis can be daunting. It’s those things you do to get yourself or your company into news articles, radio or television appearances, or other high-profile interviews. If you lack the skills to write compelling press releases, if you lack media training, and if you lack the relationships with journalists and producers, you may not want to try this on your own. Strategic communications can be complex.

4. Sales is about implementation. Once we take the time to understand our mindsets and the societal/cultural mindsets pertaining to sales, then we can begin to reframe these important activities in a way that supports us and sustains us rather than depletes us or stresses us. It is possible to transcend dysfunctional sales practices and simply help people in ways that they will appreciate. Sales feels uncomfortable when it is not aligned with core values. When it is integrity-based, it gives you energy because it is linked to your core values. Sales activities are about implementing your business development strategies. Simply put, Sales involves making appointments, seeking to be of service, making fabulous and bold offers, and asking for the business. The critical elements of sales involve a baseline understanding of the sales process and your own sales cycle, knowing your hit rates and numbers, moving people through your pipeline, and any activities that directly yield clients, contracts, and revenues.

You already understand the numbers involved in the sales process, and now you need to figure out how to fit it all in time-wise. Many professionals think of these key areas as a linear, modular recipe for success. Instead of thinking about it as “first I need to get my marketing materials going, then I can start networking, and when I get the media messaging on track I’ll be able to sell” shift your action plan to include strategic actions in each of the four key areas at once, and you will see a quantum leap in your impact and results. Your goal is to master the integration of where preparation and relation meet implementation.

Relation + Preparation + Implementation = CLIENTS

Or, stated another way,

Networking + Marketing + Sales = $$$$

Many savvy and successful businessfolk will tell you that it is not a one-to-one ratio, and that it is most important to spend the bulk of your time in networking or relational activities. As with any system, you have to put a lot into the system up front to yield the desired output. Networking, marketing and many PR activities are the precursors to sales activities, all of which are necessary input. It isn’t magic. Wouldn’t you rather be in the driver’s seat than waiting for your networking and marketing efforts to pay off? Take the lead and thereby control your time, your efforts, your results, your business. Taking action in your sales process from the start will dramatically reduce the time-to-close even while you are building your network, creating your marketing materials and strategies, and managing your public and media relations.

So, back to our Venn diagram concept – if you are taking integrated, simultaneous action in each of the domains of networking, marketing, public relations and sales, you will hit your stride in that sweet spot where they all intersect. That sweet spot is where you most effectively and most quickly seal the deal. It is not about going in four directions at once. Think of networking, marketing, PR and sales as the four wheels on which your BMW is balanced for optimum success – a precision instrument designed take you fast in the direction of your choosing!

by Suzi Pomerantz, author of Seal the Deal (www.sealthedealbook.com)