Late yesterday, I received an email from Larry Littler, an investment wholesaler with John Hancock Financial Services, with an idea on how he touches his clients in a memorable way. Over his twenty years in the investment business, Larry has consistently been a top-decile sales leader. Larry’s email spoke of the importance of developing professional relationships with clients, and reaching out to them on a regular basis in ways that are unique. At a dinner in Boston recently, his assistant Eileen Lachance shared how Larry’s team continued to stay on top, and this was one of his strategies.

Larry is in B2B sales, distributing high-end investment products through financial planners. He sends a bi-weekly email newsletter from www.cookingwithandree.com to his best clients and their spouses on personal entertaining. I looked at a sample of Andree’s service, and it is first-class! Each newsletter is a complete menu, including at least five recipes, with shopping lists, wine pairings, table settings, helpful hints, and photos to match.

This has nothing to do with investments, but is all about building relationships! Larry uses this strategy and others to augment his exceptional knowledge of the investment industry to produce consistent sales success.

Be memorable. Stand out from your competition by building deep relationships!

Good selling!

(PRLEAP.COM) Business strategist and professional speaker Michael Roby will be addressing the personal advisors of the Ameriprise Branches in Mankato, MN on February 19, 2007…

To read the complete press release, click the following link:

http://www.prleap.com/pr/62331/

In my role as a professional speaker, I am always looking for ways to bring value to those companies that hire me. Whether the topic is motivational, training, a keynote, or about sales coaching, I want to leave a lasting impression on the audience. My goal is to make a difference by helping people make measurable improvement by taking action. Some clients understand this better than others…and in fact I learn a lot from them!

Next month I will deliver a popular keynote presentation titled “Tradition” for a financial advisor that is hosting a high-end dinner for his very best clients. I called him today to check on the details of the evening, and just hearing about it motivated ME!This dinner will include fine wine, china settings, and a gourmet meal. This is an annual event that has resulted in a high level of client loyalty, to say nothing of the fact that the majority of his business comes from referrals from this group.

The presentation I will deliver speaks to the impact of tradition on our culture, relationships, and business practices. This advisor “gets it” and has built the theme of his event around the concept of tradition. The five-star formal dinner will be served on the finest china, set on white linen tablecloths. His guests will receive a gift of wine glasses engraved with the word “Tradition.” They will leave with a bottle of wine he has private-labeled with his company logo, and the name of the wine is…you guessed it…TRADITION!”

No detail is left to chance, and everything is coordinated with the chosen theme. His opening comments will focus on the tradition of service and exceeding customer expectations that he has built into his company for over 20 years, and will lead into my keynote address. This financial advisor is a PRO at customer relationship development!

If you host client appreciation events, do it first-class! Build in a theme, and show them by your meticulous planning and attention to detail that you really do APPRECIATE them and their business. Be memorable, and remember…it is hard to fire your friends!

Good selling!

All of us get into our own seemingly minor routines that often become massive ruts. When a salesperson gets in a rut their sales don’t meet quotas, they go from sales superstars to middle of the pack, and the newer salespeople pass them by. Getting out of a rut seems like it would take a massive change in the way we run our business, but it doesn’t.

Certain activities form the foundation of sales success. These activities must be completed reasonably well on a consistent basis in order for us to maximize our sales potential. Sales organizations define these activities in a variety of ways, but on the most primordial sales level these critical sales factors are as follows:

• Prospecting
• Presenting
• Objections
• Closing

Salespeople have a tendency to look for the “next big thing”, when what is really needed is incremental improvement in these basic sales activities. It doesn’t take a massive change in activity to produce big results. The reason is that sales success is a PRODUCT of these four critical factors, and quality AND quantity BOTH COUNT! For example, if you graded yourself on each of these factors with one (1) being the worst, and five (5) being the best, and you were “perfect” in each area, the product / score would be 625. Let’s take a look at two typical examples:
Score

Prospecting 3

Presenting x 3

Objections x 3

Closing x 3

Your Score 81

By improving your score in one are by a factor of one, (in this case, by doing a better job of prospecting,) your score would change as follows:

Score

Prospecting 4

Presenting x 3

Objections x 3

Closing x 3

Your Score 108 … 33% better!

One more example:

Score

Prospecting 4

Presenting x 4

Objections x 4

Closing x 4

Your Score 256 … a 300%-plus improvement over our first example!

In other words, incremental improvement in a couple of these critical sales factors makes a HUGE change in your sales results. You don’t have to be twice as good or work twice as hard to double your sales! Take a look at each of these factors, and ask yourself these questions?

• In what areas can I improve the quickest?
• What resources do I have available to help me improve?
• WHO can help me get better?
• Would sales coaching make a difference?

Self-examination is seldom easy, but it pays off in a big way. Examine your sales techniques and activities, make small changes, and I promise you that big increases in sales will appear… it is inevitable!

Over the weekend I received an email and subsequent phone call from a financial advisor who read my post on BNI as a networking tool. He chose not to reply to the post, but had a GREAT prospecting / networking idea!

This financial advisor arranged and hosted a networking luncheon for his clients, and invited a CPA, attorney, banker, real estate agent, and travel agent. Each participant received up to eight minutes to describe a “Premier Planning Suggestion” aimed at present or soon-to-be senior citizens. The participants invited their own clientele, and the event was publicized in the local media without cost, as a PSA or “Public Service Announcement”! The cost of the luncheon was shared equally (which encouraged the presenters to work to generate a turnout.)

Only 22 people showed up, but each of these professionals now has some new prospects, as well as the foundation for a successful networking group. As the catalyst for this group, the financial advisor demonstrated leadership; a fact I believe had to impress the other professionals involved. The group is planning to do this on a quarterly basis, and other professionals have inquired about the ability to participate. Of course, the group has chosen to limit the “membership.”

When you choose to look for innovative ways to market your business, your growth is often exponential. All the presenters will find new and possibly serendipitous business relationships and opportunities within their marketplace. If you think this makes sense, try to build a similar group. If no, say so as a reply to this post. If you have additional networking ideas, please leave those in the form of a reply, as well.

Good selling!

Tomorrow, I am speaking at a National Sales Meeting for a major international insurance company. (My former employer!) Anyone in sales attends many national and regional sales and sales training events. Usually management covers such a huge amount of information, you feel as if you are trying to drink from a fire hose! A study shows that you lose 90% of information you hear after only TWO DAYS! How do you retain and apply the wealth of information you receive at these meetings?

Let me give you three strategies.

First, whenever you attend a major sales conference, make a list of three (3) people you want to meet with during the meeting. Sales leaders, experts in fields of interest to you, and home office support staff can provide you with valuable information and contacts to help you grow your sales business.

Second, I recommend that you buy a “Meetings Journal” for all of your notes from any training experience. (You can also keep notes from books and CD’s in this resource.) Too often we make notes on a legal pad, or a handout, and they go into a file…never to be seen again! You can get a journal at Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, or any office supply store. One company that makes these journals is Wilson Jones, from ACCO Brands. You can see their products at http://www.acco.com/wilsonjones/ They come with lined, numbered pages, and you build a table of contents in the back as you go. Title and date each page. By using this journal, I always have all of my notes in one place, and it becomes a great tool to help me rediscover old sales gems. This strategy has served me well for over 15 years!

Third, pay attention to your notes. Take notes in chronological order, but also set up “Topic,” “Quote,” and “To-Do” Pages. When you hear a solid idea or sales line, put it in your chronological notes AND on the appropriate additional page. When the meeting is over, IMMEDIATELY go to these additional pages, and circle the very best ideas to implement in your business plan. Schedule the second tier ideas for later in the year.

Companies spend huge amounts of time, energy, and money on sales conferences and conventions. You take time out of the field to attend. Using these ideas help them…and YOU…get the most out of the investment as you grow your business!

Good selling!

Referrals and introductions drive the business of top professional salespeople. Among the myriad of prospecting techniques, Referred Lead Prospecting makes the most sense for several reasons:

• Referrals are a low-cost lead acquisition strategy
• Referrals help prospects feel comfortable with you, because you were introduced
• Centers of Influence have a tendency to self-replicate if you keep your sales and service promises
• Once you build a referral network, your new product and service offerings spread like wildfire, because people in your network talk to each other more often than you know
• Building referral marketing technologies are relatively simple

Referral marketing works best when you NETWORK with others. Among the many networking strategies, one of the best known is BNI (Business Networking International), which organizes referral networks for sales professionals and entrepreneurs. The following comes from BNI’s website, which is www.bni.com :

“The World’s Largest Referral Organization Welcome to our website. BNI is the largest business networking organization in the world. It offers members the opportunity to share ideas, contacts and most importantly, business referrals.”

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