A business without qualified leads – quickly becomes a profit challenged company.
A professional practice was having challenges attracting new business.
Difficult to reach CEO's Physicians, Dentists, and Business owners is their client base.
A client wanted to build relationships to CEO's, Physicians, Dentists, and Business Owners. I arranged a U.S. based high-performing children's choir to travel to Canada and perform at a local music festival.
I contacted a number of non-competing companies, who also wanted to market to this coveted target market, to become sponsors. Sponsorships covered the entire Choir's travel costs, including covering the cost of obtaining a child a passport, if they did not possess one. My client was able to execute this ingenious marketing program – at no cost.
I purchased a list of CEO's, Physicians, Dentists, and Business Owners. A 5 ½ inch, by 8 ½ inch parchment paper delivered the typed offer, inserted the offer in a hand addressed, hand stamped parchment envelope and mailed it to the purchased list of C-Class prospects.
The envelope resembled a personal invitation. The gatekeeper did not open this envelope; they put the envelope on the desk of the recipient to open personally. The offer asked CEO's, Physicians, Dentists, and Business Owners to billet a high-performing child in their home for 3 days. The offer presented an opportunity for the prospect's children or grandchildren to engage with a high-performing child. A telephone call followed the mailing quickly providing all 30 members of the choir with a billet. Every C-Class prospect and their family attended the billeted child's performance.
I created a billet party after the event. Every billeting CEO, Physician, Dentist, Business Owner, and their family attended. Billet families networked with other billets and enjoyed sharing experiences. Our client's rainmakers easily networked with this coveted class of prospects at the billet party; building relationships in a non-threatening way. These C-Class prospects were thrilled to be part of bringing the U.S. children's choir to perform locally. Their families enjoyed interacting with choir members and watching their billeted children perform. The C-Class prospects were remarkably open to discuss their business challenges at the billet party with my client's rainmakers.
The client's rainmakers set a large number of appointments with billet C-Class prospects at the billet party. I trained client rainmakers to suggest – even though the prospect was happy with their current professional service provider; they should use my client's firm – as a spare tire – as a back up to their existing provider. All the prospect had to do was throw a little work my client's way.
My client agreed to focus on outperforming the existing professional provider by working with me to add value to their services that the existing provider was not offering. Over a 2-year period, 10 out of the 30 prospects converted to clients. Interesting, without a Sherpa like myself guiding them, none of the sponsors, sent their rainmakers to the billet party, missing the entire point of sponsorship marketing.
My client's primary client was 50 years old, plus. My client's product required visual images to create a lead. They felt they needed to buy television advertising to deliver the visual image necessary. However, they told me the rates quoted by the television stations were too expensive.
Television stations – when presented with a win – win opportunity – are negotiable.
After approaching many television stations in the client's market, I found one station that was willing to air classic movies that appealed to the 50 plus crowd, every Sunday afternoon.
As a test, the television station agreed to produce and air my client's commercials for all 16 available 2-minute commercials during the movie. I negotiated $24 dollar per inquiry fee. The television station agreed to accept a $24 dollar commission for each inquiry received by a third party call centre. If there were no inquiries, my client would pay nothing. This is per inquiry advertising. A media-advertising representative will not offer per inquiry advertising to their clients. You must talk to the station manager. I created a strong call to action in the commercials.
I went to the third party call centre to gauge the results of the Sunday movie. The 1st commercial yielded no inquiries. Inquires gained momentum from the 2nd inquiry on. From the 12th to the 16th commercial – the phones rang off the hook. Repetition is the mother of learning.
I included telephone and web contact methods to make it easy for prospects to respond. Web inquires were counted that day and came in strong.
The client delivered $100,000 dollars of business from the movie inquiries. Movie marketing cost of a sale was a 3rd of the cost of my client's existing marketing programs. The television station was ecstatic at the revenue they received. The client advertised every Sunday on this television station for years and paid for the advertising on a per inquiry basis.
The station became a client and successfully used the results to sell new clients advertising at regular rates to new clients.
Build a high performing sales team selling energy savings to the CFO of the targeted companies.
Most companies, including this client, expect a sales person to:
1. Generate a lead.
2. Set an appointment.
3. Perform a need analysis.
4. Present to the needs.
5. Close.
6. Service the client.
7. Follow up for a referral.
The reality is 5 percent of salespeople can successfully accomplish all 7 steps. 95 per cent of the sales force fumbles more than 1 of the steps – resulting in a mediocre performance. This was true for this client.
Salespeople were using the Yellow Pages to identify businesses that were of a certain size. Salespeople called the company to identify the Chief Financial Officer. This is very time consuming. On a 2nd call, salespeople attempted to reach the CFO by telephone, set an appointment, perform a needs analysis, and present the energy savings to the CFO, close, service the client, and follow up for a referral. Many times the CFO was not available. Salespeople needed to make multiple callbacks before they were able to reach the CFO.
The 30 salespeople were setting about 3 appointments a week for a total of 90 appointments per week.
It took the salespeople 10 contacts on average to set one appointment.
Salespeople closed an average of 1 sale a week for a company average of 30 sales per week.
The client was experiencing high salesperson turnover – creating expensive training costs.
1. I bought lists of businesses, including the name of the CFO, with premises larger than 5,000 sq. feet.
2. I hired and trained a team of 10 inside telephone sales assistants to contact CFO's and set appointments for a field salesperson.
3. Telephone Sales Assistants set 3 geographically tight appointments a day per field salesperson.
4. I adjusted the field salesperson commission to pay for the salary of the sales assistant and the 2 per cent commission paid to a sales assistant for a completed and paid for sale.
5. I reduced the field sales force down to 15 quality members and trained them to perform a needs analysis, present to the needs, and close the sale.
6. The sales assistants set 1 appointment for every 3 contacts, compared to 1 appointment for every 10 contacts under the previous sales force model. This success rate is due to constants supervision and training by a working telephone sales assistant team leader.
7. Dedicated telephone sales assistants generated 45 qualified field sales appointments a day or 180 appointments per week.
8. The field sales team closed at 50 per cent or 90 sales per week. Salespople earned more money than under the previous sales model. Salesperson turnover was almost nonexistent.
9. The client experienced a 300 per cent increase in sales – with the same cost per sale.
As time went on, I promoted 2 high performing sales assistants to what I call a pitch & miss telephone sales position. The pitch & miss telephone sales people followed up with CFO's, two weeks after the field presentation that the field sales force could not close. We discovered the CFO would tell a third person the real objection why the resisted the energy savings opportunity. It was usually a personality conflict with the field salesperson. The 2 pitch & miss telephone sales people closed a sale a day over the phone or an additional 10 sales per week and earned referrals from existing accounts they serviced by telephone by providing excellent after the sale follow-up service.