CHAPTER 2

INTRODUCING THE TARGET, CONNECT, MEET, ASK MODEL

I’ve witnessed and heard of many delaying tactics employed by people keen to put off the day when they actually start selling. I can’t blame them and won’t blame you if you’ve been doing the same, because we all put off doing the things we hate.

However, getting started is a whole lot easier if you know what to do first.

Do you drive? Remember the process by which you were taught, the step-by-step process of ‘Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre’?

Well, here’s a process for developing business: TARGET, CONNECT, MEET, ASK (and FOLLOW UP at every stage). I’m going to introduce you to the model in this chapter so that once you’ve read it, you’ll be able to get going and start building your business right away.

Early in 2010, one of my clients asked me to come up with a model for the business development process I use when, well, er … developing business. My initial response was that I didn’t have one; that what I did was just instinctive, after years of refining how I go about selling. However, he pressed me on the subject and said that if I could define what I did in terms of a process, it would be something he and I could roll out to partners.

So I got thinking. I really thought about what it is that I do. And it was tricky.

However, I realized that I do follow a process, pretty much to the letter and pretty much all of the time:

1. TARGET	}
2. CONNECT	}	FOLLOW UP
3. MEET	}
4. ASK	}

I TARGET the sectors I want to sell to and then the decision makers, I then CONNECT with the sole purpose of arranging to MEET them, where, after listening to them, I ASK for their business. And at every single stage of the process I FOLLOW UP.

I’m going to go into loads of detail about every stage in the rest of this book, so that by the end of each chapter you’ll know what to be doing next. But I reckon a quick look at the whole model (or a ‘heads up’, for those of you who love banal business jargon) might be in order now.

Target

You absolutely have to have a focus for your business development activity. You can’t wander blindly into the market thinking: ‘Ooh, this is lovely; I could sell my stuff to loads of people who’ll all love it’ or ‘Everyone needs what I have so my market is massive’. While this might give you a warm, fuzzy glow about how much money you’re going to make, you’ll just end up throwing a lot of business development hard work at a wall in the hope that enough of it will stick – and trust me, not enough of it will.

Having a target to aim for is imperative and is the very first thing you must consider.

Which markets are you going to go for, which organizations, and which people within those organizations?

Connect

What I’m talking about here is connecting emotionally with the people you want to persuade to buy your product or service.

Making an emotional connection with prospective purchasers is terribly important and yet so few people even make an attempt to do it.

If you begin regarding selling as a science and stop doing it instinctively, you focus on coming across as professional. And while being professional is important because it builds trust and conveys credibility to your potential customer, the fact is that in endeavouring to appear professional, you almost always simply give the impression of being very earnest and a bit ‘up yourself’.

Think about all the emails, letters, flyers and phone calls you have received either at home or at work, sent by organizations or individuals trying to sell you their wares. What happens to them? You delete them, bin or recycle them, or hang up. And you do that because they have failed to make any sort of emotional connection with you.

I want you to appreciate that CONNECT refers to any kind of contact with a potential client.

There are numerous ways to connect with the people you want to persuade. Along with the ones already mentioned, email, phone and letter, I’d add video conferencing, Skype, LinkedIn, Facebook, speaking at a conference or seminar, or meeting people face to face at a networking event.

Meet

The third part of the process is MEET, which anyone serious about selling is aiming for when they initially connect with their target.

Irrespective of how you go about connecting, it’s with one specific purpose in mind: to meet the person who can sign the order, give the green light, say ‘yes’, give the thumbs up, release the funds, let slip the dogs of war … sorry, I got all Shakespearean for a moment there.

Emailing people won’t do. Sending flyers out is hit and miss. Producing a glossy newsletter/bulletin/pamphlet/email is akin to staking your financial security on a Euro Millions ticket.

You absolutely, completely, utterly and most assuredly have to meet the person you want to win work from, especially if you are selling a service, because you are the product.

Those of you quick off the mark will realize that one way to connect and meet at the same time is at a networking event; and you’d be right. However, in all but the most exceptional cases – it’s never happened to me – an encounter at a networking event is not going to be as productive as a one-to-one, pre-arranged chat over a coffee, which both parties have agreed and are aware is going to be about learning whether a supplier–purchaser relationship might be on the cards.

Ask

If you don’t ask for the order – and the vast majority of people don’t – how are you going to get the answer ‘yes’?

There are ways to ask that aren’t as abrupt as the business equivalent of blurting out: ‘So, do you fancy a snog?’ And there are ways to handle the objections that such an approach is almost inevitably going to lead to, which even more subtle approaches may prompt.

People are reluctant to ask because they fear rejection and that dreaded response: ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ However, that’s not the end of the world and anyway, ‘No’ in this context doesn’t mean ‘No’, it just means ‘Not at the moment’.

Very often, when you ask for the business, the job, the order or the contract, the question of price arises – ‘How much does it cost?’ Once again, this is an issue about which many people worry, even though a query about price is actually a positive thing.

Other issues or objections may arise. An objection is merely a blockage to agreeing on a deal. While the emergence of objections can seem to be a catastrophe to anyone new to developing business, it’s better to have them out in the open and thus able to be dealt with, than not to know the reason for not securing the order.

Following Up

Following up is something you need to be doing right through the business development process. It’s the umbrella under which you do TARGETING, CONNECTING, MEETING and ASKING.

If your job or income relies on persuading others to buy what you have, then you must follow up on anything and everything that comes your way that will help you make inroads into your target market.

Leads will also appear that take you into different markets and that’s fine, so long as they are profitable and don’t mean you having to make major adaptations to your product or service.

So follow up, all the time, every time and with a determined focus. Do not leave loose ends!

You’ll know you’re following up well when your diary is peppered with reminders to call, email and write to people you’ve previously made contact with.

FOLLOW UP also happens to be the part of the business development process with which a hell of a lot of people struggle. They really hate it, a lot.

There are a number of reasons for this, but the biggest is that they worry about coming across as too pushy, so they tend not to bother at all.

Well, don’t worry, because later on I’m going to devote an awful lot of space to explaining in detail how to follow up efficiently, effectively and elegantly, while keeping in control and focused throughout.

And because following up is something you should be doing after every stage of the model, I’ll have a paragraph or two at the end of each chapter as well.

OK, before you can even think about following up, you first need to know who you want to be following up with – and that means deciding who to target.