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Train
Your Targeted Prospects To Buy From You And Loathe
The Competition
The
Monopolize Your Marketplace System is the systematic
approach to making prospects want to listen to
what a company has to offer by presenting a compelling
case for your product or service and systematically
and consistently communicating it in a way that's
instantly embraceable.
We
have found that most companies don't have much
of a problem selling their services or products
- once they get an audience. If a salesman gets
an appointment, as long as he can fill the prospect's
basic needs, then he's got a good shot at making
the sale. In retail, if the customer just comes
in the door, it's likely that they'll buy again,
provided that their needs can be met at a fair
price. Professionals can usually sell new clients
if they can just get the initial consultation
to demonstrate how good they are. If a manufacturer
can just get his products into the hands of distribution,
there's a good chance they'll make sales and so
on. The problem is generally NOT selling.
The
Problem Is Getting An Opportunity To Sell
The Monopolize
Your Marketplace System is to consistently contact
your target market with compelling marketing pieces.
In this way you train your prospects to buy from
you and loathe the competition. You do this through
the creation and implementation of a Hopper System.
The
whole point of the Hopper System is to allow you
to manage huge quantities of leads without all
the additional time, hassle, and expense of trying
to personally contact each one of them with the
intent of developing a one-on-one relationship.
Most business owners and salespeople spend 80%
of their time trying to frantically manage prospects
(with little success), instead of spending 80%
of their time closing business and building their
residual income.
To
help you more clearly understand how the Hopper
System works, consider the analogy of a plum tree.
It's simplistic, but it's also true to form. Let's
say you have a plum tree in your backyard. Each
year that tree will grow hundreds of green plums
that are up on the branches just waiting to turn
red. If you wait long enough, you'll discover
that some of the green plums ripen, turn red,
and become ready to eat.
Plums
on a tree are like your prospects. At first, some
of your prospects will be ready to buy just like
the ripe plums that are ready to eat at the beginning
of the season. But the fact remains, that for
various reasons, many of your prospects WILL NOT
be ready to buy when you first contact them. They
still need some nurturing some time to "ripen,"
so to speak.
Harvesting
"ripe" prospects is easy. These are the ones you
call on and they have an immediate need and since
you called at a good time, you get the sale. This,
incidentally, is not your greatest opportunity
to gain new customers. Your REAL potential wealth
lies in the "green" prospects-ones who need more
time and more nurturing from you before they'll
finally be ready to buy.
The
average business owner or salesperson will pick
all the red plums off the tree, throw them in
his little bucket (he doesn't need a very big
one!), and run off to the next tree looking for
more red plums. Maybe his next tree is a trade
show, a networking group, a mail campaign, a fax
blast, or a telemarketing list. But wait a second-don't
you think some of those green ones, the ones who
weren't ready right away might pan out in the
future?
Well,
even the average business owner or salesperson
figures that his green plums might turn red someday,
too. So he sets up a great system for cultivating
them called the tickler file. Every so often,
he calls the people on his list from a given tree
and becomes what's known as "the annoying little
voice on the other end of the phone."
See
if this sounds familiar; maybe you've even been
guilty of doing it. You call an unconverted prospect
and say "Hello, may I please speak with Tom. Tom?
Hey, this is Joe over at XYZ Cash Flow Solutions.
Remember I met you at the chamber of commerce
lunch a couple of months ago? You don't. Well,
did you get that brochure I sent you with my business
card? Oh, don't worry about it. Anyway, I was
just calling to see if you guys over there need
any of our services yet? You don't? That's okay.
I'll give you a call in a couple of months to
see if you need some then. Bye!"
See
how silly that sounds? There is no reason from
the prospect's perspective for you to call him
and waste his time in the first place. So instead
of building trust and confidence and brand equity,
you're building a gulf of contempt and hatred!
This routine gets old (for them) very, very fast.
In
business, realize that there's a process that
a prospect must go through before he'll be ready
to buy from you. He may need to learn more about
this industry in general or he may want to know
about you and why your offer is any better than
anyone else's he's considering. Or maybe, he just
doesn't need what you have...right now.
Your
challenge is to educate and nurture each prospect
along. But that's hard to do if you've got more
than 10 prospects. Lots of business books and
trainers talk about what's known as "relationship
marketing" or the process of building a personal
relationship with a prospect so he'll think you're
his friend. After all, given a choice, we'd all
like to buy things from our friends. But with
250 prospects, that's a tough row to hoe.
Let's
go back to the orchard to find the solution. In
the orchard, you cultivate plum trees by watering,
fertilizing, de-pesting, etc., and you also let
nature take care of some things (sun, rain, and
so forth). But remember, prospects are like plums,
not entire trees. Building a relationship with
every prospect is a lot like paying a lot of attention
to every plum on the tree. Imagine inspecting
all the plums for bugs every day. Or somehow adding
a small but precise amount of water to each plum
each day. This is a silly example, but it does
make the point. You have to address the entire
tree at once not plum by plum.
In
the orchard you can set up an irrigation system
that would automatically come on every day to
water the trees. You can hire an airplane to drop
pesticide on your trees once a week. You can send
in a crew to prune the branches. In other words,
you can treat the entire orchard at once. All
the plums will ripen when the time comes. Then
your job is to go in and HARVEST!
In
sales, your nurturing consists of two things:
Communication and Consistent Contact. You have
to continuously communicate with your prospects
why they would want to do business with youŠand
you have to say it in a way that makes them believe
it and take action. If you will do this consistently,
you will win the lion's share of the business.
Here's why:
- None
of your competitors are doing it, so you win
by default.
-
If you do this properly, you will be building
your case and as soon as the prospect has a
need, you will already be the OBVIOUS CHOICE
to do business with.
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