I'm sitting on the beach in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It's a beautiful bright sunny day. The sky is blue, the sand is warm, the water is cool and refreshing, and the birds in the trees are singing.
You can taste the salt water on the gentle breezes. While I'm lying in my chair, enjoying my vacation, the locals are working.
Off in the distance, about a mile offshore, six pelicans are sitting on the bow of an 18 foot fishing boat as it bobs up and down in the cove. Seven more pelicans are swimming behind it. Above are swarms of seagulls.
Onboard the two men are fishing. The pelicans and seagulls are looking for a free meal. Both man and bird have a love/hate relationship with each other.
The fishermen want to go where the fish are, so they search the horizon for the birds because the birds can see the fish swimming just below the water's surface.
Once the fishermen start catching fish, the pelicans and gulls hover overhead hoping to swipe one from the fisherman's nets or steal them off the fishing hooks before they can be brought into the boat.
Watching the fisherman, pelicans and seagulls interact reminds me of a story I heard years ago. An old man is sitting at the end of the dock with his fishing pole in his hand and his line in the water.
His feet are dangling over the end of the dock as he watches his bobber float back and forth.
A young boy walks up. He looks at the box of fishing tackle. He looks at the fishing pole. He walks over to the empty bucket, the one that's supposed to hold the fish that have been caught, to see what's inside.
Then he leans over the side of the dock to look at the bobber floating in the water.
He thinks for a moment and asks the old man, "What are you doing?"
The old man turns around, looks at him and replies, "Fishing."
The youngster asks, "Catch anything?" To which the old man replies, "Nope! If I caught anything, they wouldn't call it fishing."
That's sort of the way it is with selling. Most of us spend a lot of time doing all sorts of things every day, but don't catch much fish - or close many sales.
We do paperwork. Make phone calls. Put proposals together. Have lots of meetings. Shuffle papers from one corner of the desk to another. Read e-mail. Do research on the Internet.
We're busy. However, that doesn't mean we're productive.
We're like the fisherman who spends all day fooling around with his rod and reel, playing with his hooks and lures, but never gets around to putting the line into the water. Then he goes home and tells everybody how bad the fishing was.
To stay with the fishing analogy, I think there's a much better way to sell. This is what you d
1. Find The Fish
If your job is to sell - and in today's highly-competitive business environment, everybody in the company should be selling - you should be looking for business, not sitting at your desk doing paperwork.
But let's take a fresh look at how we find our business.
Instead of just looking for prospects in a hap-hazard way, create a systematic and methodological approach to finding prospects.
It's much easier to catch fish when you know where all the fish - large schools of fish - are.
- Go to networking events.
- Join your local chamber of commerce.
- Attend industry seminars and conventions.
- Look for organizations where your 'ideal' prospects gather.
- Become active in trade organizations.
- Go out and meet people. Look for fish!
When you attend a networking event, your goal should be to meet as many people as you possibly can in the shortest period of time. Spend no more than three to five minutes with any one person.
Have short - meaningful - interactions with a large number of people. And when you speak with a person, always get a business card.
Remember: It's much more important for you to get the other person's name, address and phone number than it is for him to have yours. Because it's your job to call him. He's not going to call you.
Make it easy to give away business cards.
When I'm at a networking event I always keep my business cards in my left pant pocket, and the cards that I collect in my right pant pocket. This makes it easy to give away - and collect - business cards.
So take your business cards out of your wallet, briefcase, purse, or business card case and make it easy for you to exchange cards with the people you meet.
As the two of you are talking, ask questions about them. It's more important that you know who they are and what they do - so you can determine whether or not they're a prospect for your products - than for them to know everything about you, your company. Encourage them to talk.
Ask them at least three questions about what they do and how their business is going. You'll be amazed at how much you can learn in a three minute conversation.
Once you've completed your conversation, and you've walked away, write a brief note on the card as a reminder of who they are and what they do.
When you get back to the office, put the person into your contact database and schedule a call so the two of you can get together.
The single biggest failure of people who attend networking events is that they never follow-up with the people who they've just met. And they wonder why business is so bad.
2. Use Great Bait
Once you've located your fish you need to catch them.
If you don't pick up the phone and call them, nothing's going to happen. They aren't going to be calling you. So if you want to capture your opportunities, you've got to have great telephone techniques.
If you're calling people up and are being told "Thanks for calling, but we're all taken care of." or "We don't need any." or "My brother-in-law handles it for us." You need to improve your telephone skills.
When you're speaking with a person on the phone you must give them a compelling reason to speak with you and keep the conversation going. The best way to do it is to ask questions.
Once you get someone talking, they begin to enjoy themselves and are likely to continue. Have you ever had someone end a conversation when they were the one who was speaking. Doesn't happen very often.
3. Get The Fish To Come To You
Now that you've collected a group of prospects, you need to have a simple, easy and effective way to keep your name in front of them.
If you only show up at their offices once every four to six months - when you're in the neighborhood - they'll quickly forget about you.
Use the telephone to keep in touch with your best prospects and customers. When you call, have a compelling reason for them to talk with - and meet with - you. You're wasting everybody's time if you're calling just to say "Hi."
In today's fast-paced world, there aren't enough hours in the day for you to keep in touch with everybody when you're using the phone or scheduling meetings. There are too many people in the database, and too much time is spent with people who aren't in the market to buy today.
So you've got to create a way to get the fish to come to you. I would recommend you create an e-mail newsletter. Today's electronic technology makes it easy to send information to hundreds, or hundreds-of-thousands of people with the click of a button.
I send a newsletter to 150,000 people - all over the world. It take less than an hour to be delivered.
By giving something of value to your customers and prospects, it keeps your name in front of them and is a very gentle reminder of who you are and what you do. They will certainly remember who you are.
4. Get Your Fish To Jump In The Boat
Once you've started sending your newsletter, you want people to begin calling you. Calling you with questions. Calling you with ideas.
The more people you come in contact with, the better - and stronger - your relationship with them becomes.
With time, your newsletter readers will begin contacting you asking about your products and services. They'll want to know how you can be of help to them.
They're raising their hands - picking up the phone and calling, or sending e-mail - saying "I'm ready to do business with you. What does it cost?"
When this happens you've got your fish jumping into the boat.
