If you are working on the launch of a product on the market for a quarter or half a year, focus on establishing relationships with people who in the future may prove of assistance in promotional activities and sales today. To do so, ‘start to dig a well before you feel thirsty’ – in other words, prepare your network of contacts for future action.
If you want to reap any benefit from networking, you will need to continue working on the quality of relationships and on yourself. If your ultimate goal is to sell or distribute, the more you have to take care of building long-term relationships based on trust.
In previous articles I wrote about the fact that networking offers a universal tool for those involved in business. Today, I want to focus on the possibilities that professional networking sites will give those involved in distribution or sale. According to the principle that ‘everything you do brings you closer to the goal or away from it (never stand in one place)’, every move and every word has meaning here. For example, if during a conversation you mention the subject of sales, it may be important not only what and how you pass this information on, but also all other factors, details and circumstances. The time of day and occasion at which to mention a topic can be crucial for the success of your project. At first glance, the excessive attention to such details may seem crazy, but it is not. Moreover, you need to start planning the preliminary steps leading eventually to a sale much earlier.
If you are working on the launch of a product on the market for a quarter or half a year, focus on establishing relationships with people who in the future may prove of assistance in promotional activities and sales today. To do so, ‘start to dig a well before you feel thirsty’ – in other words, prepare your network of contacts for future action.
First of all, carry out intelligence activities, such as finding out who might be helpful, where this person can be found or through whom that person can be reached. It is not even about the sale itself, but creating opportunities to know each other, to prove your credibility and professionalism which, if you can manage it (create occasions to engage in some common activities and prove that you are really worth it) should mean that a product that you are backing up will also be favourably received, or at least willingly tried. If that happens, there is a chance that your product will gain ambassadors who will support its distribution (and it really simply will support you) in a variety of ways (not necessarily engaging in the same sale). At this stage, if you had taken care about your prominence on the market, and above all your credibility and you have the right people in your network of contacts, you should not have a problem with the subsequent distribution.
Regardless of your profession, if you want to reap any benefit from networking, you will need to continue working on the quality of relationships and on yourself. If your ultimate goal is to sell or distribute, the more you have to take care of building long-term relationships based on trust and, as we know, it takes time but it is the surest way to success.
I had the opportunity recently to speak with an investor specializing in the technology market. He emphasized that these companies are successful, in which at least one person from the board is responsible for sales and distribution, and what he described as ‘networking like hell’. He does not sell, he does not promote, but he networks! All contacts in the network of that businessman know exactly what his company does and how they can help him.
If you are involved in sales, it is worth focusing on uniting yourself with your ambassadors. Ambassadors are people who would be happy to talk about you and your product to a number of people and will usually do it for free, knowing that when the time comes they will be able to count on your support in their ventures and undertakings.
What can be done to win over these ambassadors? You can, for example, take the advice of Fred Reichheld, author of the bestseller ‘The Wall Street Journal – the decisive question’. In his book he explains how by asking only one question, you can increase the benefits from your network of contacts and increase sales in the company. It turns out that nowadays customers do not have time to answer in-depth questions of corporate satisfaction surveys, and even if they take up the effort, their responses do not reflect the actual multidimensional opinion. The reason is a change in the means of communication, forced by the pace and the multitasking system that your current customers function in, which questionnaires are simply not suitable for. Asking the client about dedicating the most precious resource, which he has available, or the time to fill out an extensive questionnaire, exposes your relationship by not gaining anything in return (only about 2-5% of people in such surveys provide reliable answers). You get quite a different result by asking a simple question involving a subtle suggestion in the background: to what extent are you recommending my company to your best friend or an acquaintance? If you start asking it to your customers as well as other people in your network of contacts, you will find a new way to the real growth of your business.
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