How to stand out.
I did a lot of work this week with clients who want to finalize late-stage deals.
A late-stage deal is a deal that's almost done but not quite.
Remember, I just do B2B, so it takes time, and deals get stuck towards the end.
But I'd like to tell you it's never been easier.
Because everyone's looking for the shortcut.
There's nothing on the shortcut path.
All the good stuff lives on the hard path.
Here are 20 ways to make the client think about you,
irrespective of your price, products, features, contracts, and all the other stuff.
It takes work and effort, but that's the golden piece,
because most people aren't prepared to put that effort in.
Enjoy!
1. Courier your RFP - no one ever throws away a DHL envelope.
2. Comment on their LinkedIn post. Almost no one does that.
3. Customize your deck specifically to their company.
4. Write your champion an email, in their words, so they can send it to their boss to get your deal approved. If you don't understand that, DM me.
5. Find out their hobbies and research cool YouTube documentaries they'd like to watch, and send it to them.
6. Old school. Have lunch with them. It's called breaking bread. It still works.
7. Reply to everything immediately. Money loves speed.
8. Build a personal brand so they ‘know you’ more than your competitors. (If you're too embarrassed to do that, perhaps don't work in sales.)
9. Do a Loom showing how you would add benefits to them. (If you don't know Loom, figure it out. It doubles the open rates of proposals.)
10. Invite a decision maker on your podcast. Don't have a podcast? Are you living in the 1880s? 😂
11. Build a list of all decision makers and make sure you're connected on LinkedIn.
12. And with those decision makers, make sure they know about your proposal.
13. Set up Google alerts for any news on their company. So if something significant happens, you know about it.
14. If they're not replying, book a meeting two weeks out to help get things resolved. If they don't want that meeting, you're not getting a deal.
15. Send them a birthday card. If you can't work out their birthday, perhaps don’t work in sales 😂
16. Write your actual thoughts to them, not corporate BS. Makes a huge difference.
17. Remember to pitch your benefits, not features. Double-check that.
18. Add something to your proposal that no one else has.
19. Work on weekends and send them something on the weekend. It shows that your company will work hard. (I always get crap when I say this. I'm sorry, but it works.)
20. Make them laugh; comedy wins every time. Not that I would know, I'm not that funny.
To follow up on this, here is a book with so many more better sales ideas.
Ralph Roberts, the guru of sales from the 1990s, the most innovative sales guy I have followed.
This book will give you so many ideas about how to stand out, and that's the trick today. Standing out. Don't do what everyone else is doing.
Remember, the easy path sucks; the hard path is where the money is.
Go buy this book.
Click to buy the book.