Industry Magazine Get JACK'D Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 7

recommended I buy from Hank and you
hadn’t even done so. What’s up with that?”
Steve said he had several bikes from his
professional biking days. But he had moved
from the northeastern United States to
California with the intent to swim-coach
triathletes. He figured that if he were to
assemble the “best in the business” for each
element of needs that a triathlete has, he
would likely hold on to his students longer
as they wouldn’t want to lose access to such
a value-added resource to their triathlon
success. Additionally, Steve believed that
because of this network, his likelihood of
additional referrals would increase as well.
Take that in. Steve certainly is one heckuva
swim coach, but I’d say he also is a solid sales
person/entrepreneur. My philosophy on
sales is to help my prospects/customers
with their needs/opportunities/problems
in the best way that I can, “even if it means
not me.” People truly don’t want to be sold,
but if we ask enough questions and discover
as much as we can about our prospects/
customers, then we can not only go to work
at helping them with our products/services
where appropriate but also bring them
additional resources. This further increases
the trust, and selling is the transfer of trust.
The first takeaway here, and it’s not the
main takeaway, is to ask are you working to
be viewed by your public in a similar fashion
as Steve? What network of resources have
you compiled and developed a relationship
with that could add value to your prospects/
customers? Create that network and you
will clearly stand apart positively from your
competitors.
Now, back to that lunch with Steve. So,
I high five Steve and “forgave” him for not
buying a bike from Hank. I then asked if he
had any idea how many of his swim students
he referred to Hank the bike shop owner. So,
Steve gives me a number and I write it down.
I then asked what percent did he believe
bought a bike from Hank. His guess was 50
percent; I think it was probably higher but
used 50 percent. Then, I asked what did
he guess was the average price of a bike
purchased, and he gave me a number which
I used.
When I did the math, I discovered that over
a seven-year period, Steve the swim coach
had sent more than a million dollars in sales
to Hank but had never even bought a bike
from Hank! So, the key question for you to
dig deep on is, “Who are the Swim Coaches
in your business?” You see, sometimes
the very best customers in your business
just might never buy or use your services
but could send you a lifetime of business!
Discover those, build relationships there,
and you will be working with fewer people
and writing more business. And the bonus
is, often they are not being courted by your
competitors because they don’t need your
product/service!
Think about this. All too often, the bike
shop owner is trying to find “me,” the guy in
need of a bike. At 58 years old and not riding
a bike since I was a teenager, how hard would
it be for Hank to have found me? Vice versa,
buried deep in an industrial park, without
Steve’s referral, how hard would it have been
for me to find Hank the bike shop owner?
Here are a few other examples. Over the
years, I built several residential mortgage
companies. On first blush, it would seem the
desired customer is either a homeowner or
homebuyer. However, the smart salesperson
in that business will go beyond that “obvious”
route. The smart sales professional will look
at developing relationships with Realtors.
They are always in the business and can refer
those homebuyers to mortgage providers.
Going deeper, if the professional
salesperson digs deeper and builds
relationships with the top Realtors, they
could find themselves in that prized position
in which Hank found himself.
What if Hank built a dozen strong, trusted
relationships with top Swim Coaches?
What if a loan sales professional cultivated
strong, trusted relationships with a dozen
top Realtors? I’ve known of top performing
sales professionals that have earned seven
figure incomes with the lion’s share of their
business coming in this way. In fact, in that
business, you could assemble such referral
sources, yet none of them may ever do a loan
personally with you since they don’t plan on
moving!
Again, ask the question: “Who are the
Swim Coaches in my business?” When doing
such an exercise, be sure to repeatedly ask
this question: “Who else? Who else? Who
else?”
I recently conducted a sales training
day with a repeat client of mine with
100 salespeople. This is a client that is
experiencing tremendous growth. We broke
the room down into seven teams and had a
30-minute contest during which each team
had to identify as many “Swim Coaches” in
their business as possible and present them
to the room.
After hearing each group report in, we had
identified more than 100 potential “Swim
Coaches.”
We recognized that not all of them would
have equal value, so a subsequent activity
would be a prioritization of the lists and a
strategy as to how to approach and develop
those key referral resources. Right before we
adjourned and went on to the next exercise, I
mentioned there were probably more that
could be discovered if they went deeper
than thirty minutes. To prove my point, I
then shared a few that no one had previously
mentioned. Remember, brainstorm the “Who
else? Who else? Who else?”
Now, GET HUNTING!
JACK DALY is an experienced and world-recognized sales speaker and sales training expert who inspires audiences to take action in the
areas of sales, sales management, and corporate culture. He brings 30 plus years of field-proven experience, from a starting base of CPA-
firm Arthur Andersen to a Captain in the US Army to the CEO of several national companies. Jack is a proven CEO/Entrepreneur, having built
six companies into national firms, two of which he subsequently sold to the Wall Street firms of Salomon Brothers and First Boston. His
professional sales-trainer know-how has turned him into an accomplished sales coaching authority and author of books including Hyper Sales
Growth, The Sales Playbook for Hyper Sales Growth, and Paper Napkin Wisdom, all Amazon #1 Best Sellers.
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