For every project, marketing outreach, or other time-consuming effort on your business plate, no matter how small, make certain you stick to these basic rules.

1.  Define the result you want from this effort in a short phrase, and verify that this effort will meet the 5 rules.

•  I want this to bring me more prospects.
•  I want this to alert my referral network to send me more referrals.
•  I want to win this gig.

2.  Identify the audience (the specific target market), for example ~

• qualified prospect who has passed my screening criteria
• existing client ready to be upsold to more work
• your referral network

3. Speak only to the specified audience about the result you want.

• Do not address any audience other than the one you have targeted.
• Say one thing well to one audience.
• Brief is better.

4.  Craft a message that presents your value to that audience to gain the specified result.

• Do not confuse the outcome with any adjacent messages.
• See #3 above.

5.  Ask for the result.

• When you have crafted your single message, addressing your single target audience, and you have presented your value, ask for the result you want.  Be specific.  Make a direct request for the referral or the sale.

These 5 rules will save you much wasted effort, and focus your outreach, projects or prospecting in the most efficient manner.  Be sure you review the 5 rules you have created for each project while you are working on it, to be certain you have not moved off-message or off-target.

Good luck.

Preparation:  What to take:

• an assistant (or the venue’s host) who has agreed to handle the selling activity
• lots of business cards
• Books or other saleable items
• Receipt booklet (with carbonless copy) with name of item and dollar amount written in (in advance).
• Small sign (in clear plastic photo frame, 3″ x 5″ or 4″ x 6″ in which is printed in bright red or black letters:  “Book <title>:  $20 ($28 SRP)” or some such announcement, “Special for tonight (or, for tonight’s audience):  Discount: $20”).  Note on the sign if you take cash, cash & checks, or cash, checks & credit cards.
• Accept cash (or cash and checks) only, unless you have a credit card set-up.
• Take lots of smaller bills for change.  Lots.
• Take a box or closed file folder for the smaller change-bills and for the cash received from purchases, and for the credit card copies and receipt copies.

Set up:  At the venue before you speak:

1. Set up a table with the retail person/assistant at the back or side of the room.
2. Put a stack of books or other collateral on the table, with at least one book standing up and facing out to the audience.
3. Place a stack of business cards at the front of the table, or insert one into each book before arranging on the table.
4. Place the pricing sign in front, with any notes about discounts.
5. Have the receipt book and a pen ready.
6. Determine if you will take cash only, or cash and checks, or all of those and credit cards (say so on the sign).

Conducting the sale: before and after your presentation

1. Have your assistant handle the retail end of it — the selling, money handling, the receipt writing. You must stay free of this to handle the prospects who want to speak with you.
2. Have your host announce the availability of the book, and its discounted price, during the introduction before you begin your presentation.  Do not mention the selling or the book yourself, unless you are well-known to the audience members.
3. Proceed with your contact with the audience, with your presentation and with the crowd of prospects and fans who want to speak with you after your presentation.
4. Do not pay any attention to the selling (as you will have set everything up in advance so as not to distract yourself from your prospects).

While the selling is going on without you, after your presentation, speak with the audience and work with any prospects in the room.  Here is a related article on handling these crowds.

Good luck.

The approach must be:  “I’m here to be of service…. to help/ to explore / to see if my expertise can be of any help to you /your dept / your team.”

You must not act like a vendor selling your wares or competing with “bids” on an open Request for Proposal.

You must not need anything (even if you are desperate for paying gigs).

Do not pitch.  Again, do not pitch.  Instead, offer something of value — a new direction in approaching the prospect’s problem (but not the solution itself), or a success story you once resolved for a similar problem.

The prospect interview (the first, perhaps also the 2nd or 3rd) should be a direct demonstration of your expertise, essentially, a small consulting meeting.  The prospect cannot know the value of your services unless he/she experiences the effects of that value.  You need to give some stuff away.

Here is that fine line you must learn to navigate.  You do not offer the final resolution to the problem, or the strategy itself.  But by the questions you ask, and the suggestions you make, and the brief success stories you share, you show your prospect how you think, how you approach the problem, what questions to ask to get to the next steps, and so on.  Many of these suggestions may (should) need your further participation to be effective.

Essentially, you must “step back” (from pitching) so that your prospect has enough space to “lean forward” to ask for more from you — more thoughts, more expertise, more co-dependence, more work (under contract).

Successfully walking this line comes with experience.  The first step is to realize that you must assume this position when speaking with potential clients, and be aware of this “positioning” at all times.

Good luck.

Here is how:  In the first conversation about pricing of your services, focus on the value you are offering.  Assume your value, and speak clearly about how you will be partnering with your (new) client over time, to evaluate and re-assess that your pricing is in line with the value being received.

Nothing is more compelling than the quiet confidence that you will deliver value, speak openly about your client’s satisfaction, and check in on that satisfaction on a regular basis.  You might go so far as to reflect this openness in your written agreement (it is part of my standard template).

This frank approach to value pricing reassures your prospect that you will deliver value, that you can be approached openly about deliverables and expectations, and that you must have many satisfied customers if this is your policy.

Try it.

Not getting enough?  Me neither.  And never have.  And, to tell the truth, I get a bit more than lots of folks.

This discourtesy happens to me, and to my clients.  The world is busy.  Bosses don’t respond to coordinators, who then do not tell you whether the gig is on, the schedule for your travel is planned, or that the deal has been authorized.

Prospects with deal memos in hand, or even long form contracts do not respond in a timely way.  Why?  Because they don’t want to confront you about one of the terms in the deal (did you not handle this in the deal memo?).  Or they are not going to hire you or buy your products… and they don’t want to step up and say “Sorry, no.”  So they say nothing at all, and don’t return your calls and emails.

Prospects in negotiation with you get “deal weary” because they don’t know how to fix the obstacle, and your offers to “talk about it” get ignored, time and time again.  So you are left hanging, thinking you can move past the objection, but you can’t get the phone call returned.  More conflict aversion (and tiredness) on the part of the prospect.

The secret?  Not caring about it.  Not taking it personally.  Not paying attention to the discourtesy and dysfunction in the world.  Moving on with your work and your schedule, and responding that the offered schedule time has been filled, sorry.  Or that you actually are now over-commited and cannot take on their project.

If you are busy and doing well, the discourtesy of these prospects, referral contacts and colleagues slides off your teflon back.  You do not have time to care about slow response from a pending deal, if you are busy with paying clients and customers.  You’ll ping them when your tickler file or follow-up system reminds you to do it, and then go back to work with those who are getting value for their payments to you.

And, when you are in a lull, and not busy enough?  Same behavior.  Of course, in the quiet of the not-busy-enough, not-paid-enough, need-the-revenue moment, these discourtesies scream in your ears.  You become over-anxious.  You want to ping these folks every day.

Well, you can’t.  You must learn patience, particularly during a lull or a downturn in your business.  Eager pursuit, “chasing” your prospect, will doom you to becoming a “vendor” who is open to being negotiated down.  This never works.

If you must, you pretend.  That’s right, you pretend you are busy and revenue-positive.  You pretend to yourself, so you behave correctly, and you pretend to your prospects, who will not be hurried or hassled to close before they are ready anyway.  All you lose in your anxiety is your value pricing and the real respect you actually have (your own and theirs).

Truth is, they are not thinking of you.  They are busy.  Or they have to get approval, and they are embarrassed that it is taking so long.  They have other priorities.  They will be very responsive as soon as they need you, as soon as your offer rises to priority-level for them.  They are not dis-respecting you.  They aren’t thinking about you the way you are thinking about you (or the way you are thinking they are thinking about you!).

So, relax.  Learn patience.  Set up a system that makes sense for your business that is a respectful outreach to your prospects for follow up, and which seems responsible but not eager.

And don’t beat yourself up that the world does not see your value and your contribution.  No one but you can hear that voice in your head, and anyway, it lies.

Now, your pitch and your value proposition will be different as you speak to various constituents:  your strategic or channel partners need a different message than your investors; your board needs specific reports; your advisory council needs different requests.

In all cases, though, you must create a message that speaks to the decision maker who can say yes and follow through with a check, a signed agreement to partner or to become your client, or a strategic introduction.

Here are some guidelines for creating your various pitches:

• Start at the end:  what do you want from this pitch?
• Start at the end again:  what does your request gain the listener who must say yes?
• Focus on the win/win – -what your listener will win, if you win what you want.
• Narrow your focus to only one request:  what do you really need? (capital? an introduction?  access to a distribution channel?  a new client for your consultancy?)
• Do not confuse the “sale” — do not bring into the conversation other issues that distract from your request.  This discipline is more difficult than you may think.  Stay focused.
• Use simple language, in straightforward sentences.  Too much “clutter” at the beginning of your sentences will confuse you and the listener. Start with a subject, verb, and object (I’m not kidding — straight simple talk wins deals).
• Say what you want at or near the beginning of your pitch.  Yes, at the beginning. Then repeat it at the end.  In this way, your listener will know what you want, and will relax and let you build your case, rather than wondering or dreading or being confused at what you are leading up to.  This simplifies the conversation and reduces tension.
• Use shorter sentences to build your case.  Start by saying what you want. Then start another sentence (and another after that) which supports what you want.
• Make a direct request.  Make the “ask.”  I am often surprised at competent speakers who, at the end of their pitch (or at the beginning), can not ask simply and directly for what they want.  If you stumble here, get some training.

These ideas seem simple.  So does good selling and closing, when done well.  But it is neither simple nor easy.  If so,we would get what we want by just asking, and sales people wouldn’t need training.

As a CEO, or the head of your practice, you must be your best evangelist.  Time to learn, or refine, that evangelism (and its pitching and closing) now.

Selling is done is steps:  get each small step completed, then move to the next. In a short phone call or email, take these steps:

• ask for a short (20 minute) F2F meeting (or phone call, if that is appropriate).
• offer 2-3 days and time-ranges that can work for you, so your prospect can respond quickly and simply.  Or, offer something general, as in “Tuesday or Friday afternoon this week.”  Commit and confirm the time and day and location (wherever is easiest for the prospect).
• Keep that meeting short, after brief opening friendly talk, move quickly to the point of the meeting, and ask for the next step.  What do you want and why do you want it?  A pilot program?  A scheduled time to demo to the prospect’s IT or Sales department?  A referral or introduction to someone?
• Follow up with whatever will make that request easier to implement.  Send it as soon as you can.
• Smile.  Keep a smile in your voice whenever prospecting or selling.  It matters that folks hear this energy.
• With each level of your selling cycle, keep these ideas in mind.

Another interesting idea came from that evening:  Put your request at the beginning of the email.  Then justify or add additional information to support your request.  Lots of folks read “above the fold” or scan and may not get to your request at the bottom of the message.

I always put the critical information above the fold.  And I go one step further — I use indented bullets for every issue that requires an answer.  And often I get all the answers at once.

• So, do you have other selling tactics to share in the comments section here?

Defining your strategies to respect this invisible line, and to judge when to take an action, is critically important and often learned through experience.  And the more personal your contact with the prospect, the more loaded your expectations for a response.

So, here are some approaches that have worked over time:

Make certain you are speaking with the person who can sign the check (the decision-maker).  This is done during the first meeting, often by simply asking what decision-making structure exists (is there a management committee, boss, or Board that needs to approve the deal?).  If you are not speaking with the decision-maker, move quickly to determine how much work you must do to reach that decision-maker (a simple introduction to him or her, or a series of proposals or bids that move up the chain of command?) and then determine if that work and the margin involved is worth the effort of the close.

Be gracious.  Be available to help, offer some top line expertise or sample products, and move to negotiation after there is an initial relationship created.  The initial relationship is that the prospect feels supported by you and encouraged by the value of your offering, and that you feel as if you can close and support this prospect and still maintain appropriate margins.

Don’t panic.  Often prospects take much longer to close than you would expect.  They have some other agenda or hidden issues they may not be sharing with you, other than the decision-making issues.

Don’t believe everything you hear.  Sometimes prospects lie. Sorry, sometimes their egos drive them and they mislead you in some way as to their importance or power, or sometimes they are trying to get your strategy in a proposal with no intention of hiring you to execute.  Be especially aware of this in international work, where cultural norms and expectations may be different during negotiation.  But it can happen often in the U.S. as well.

Don’t take offense.  If the close is delayed, do not take it personally.  You don’t know what is involved in the decision on the other side.  No one is “conning” you (except if they are lying, see above).  Stay supportive and persistent without chasing.

Don’t show you need the deal.  This “negative-selling” approach is most effective.  While you are being supportive of and patient with your prospect, be (or seem to be) easy in your approach to the timing of the close.  Imply that all is well, and you are ready when they are ready.  Don’t show tension for the new revenue, or in meeting some monthly or quarterly goal.  None of this will help.

The customer or client will not sign until they are ready.  There may be many reasons for the delay that you will never know.  This softer side of selling tends to create longer-term relationships, based on your availability and support, and on your not embarrassing your prospect.

Remember that this prospect is likely to become a client or customer, and this closing phase is the beginning of the lifelong relationship and value you want to create.

Have a laugh with me, and thanks to Mr. Gillespie and the New Yorker.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/04/25/110425sh_shouts_gillespie

This context is more complex than just the erosion of your self-esteem. In fact, your self-esteem may be fine. But some or all of these factors may weigh in:

• the hunger for challenging work
• the boredom of unstructured time during the long days
• the loneliness missing a community working towards a common goal
• the loss of your identity of making a significant contribution
• the hope of involvement on an interesting project.

These factors can lead you to make bad choices about where to spend your time, and how to price your worth.

Let’s assume for the moment that you are not against the wall financially – that you still have time to find new gigs or a better job.

Hunger for challenging work or hope for involvement on an exciting project may lead you ignore your better judgment about the doubtful sustainability of an initiative, or the company itself, because the project is interesting (but the success factors may be missing).

The boredom of your long days not knowing what to do when you get up in the morning may lead you to involvement with fun people in a job that sets back your career plan.

Your loneliness and yearning for community moves you to work in a company that is off the path of your expertise, and hinders your depth of experience in your chosen field.

Your loss of identity from not contributing to your chosen field or community may lead you to question the worth of your earlier contributions, and your value moving forward.

All of these factors can lead to weak choices, diminishing career momentum, and the erosion of your pricing structure, setting you back significantly, and perhaps permanently.

I have watched my clients who are consultants accept work for well below their current pricing because they were under-employed and restless, when they found an interesting project that couldn’t pay their established fees. Most folks like working more than looking for work, of course. But the discipline of maintaining your unrelenting prospecting efforts is critical, especially during economic downturns.

The fault in this judgment is that your involvement in a project or a new job rarely remains temporary. You get involved with the work and the people. You stop prospecting because you feel more valued, even in a lesser position or at lesser payment, because the community reinforcement is so stimulating and you have been so restless and bored. You accept this new, lower position and its compensation as appropriate.

And in accepting a lesser position or lesser payment, you set yourself down a notch or two from the level of payment and responsibility that took you years to create for yourself. And as time goes on, you must re-earn that previous position, even when the economy recovers.

I understand the need for challenging work and community support, especially when the down times go on so long. I know how exhausting it is to continuously prospect for new work, to be disappointed when the prospective work is less interesting or lower-paid than you had hoped, and you pass on the opportunity. And then begin again.

But, unless you are desperate for any income, you must maintain your discipline and sustain your effort of 90% or more committed time to client work and to getting new work, leaving only 10% to confusion, loneliness and the administrivia that bores you. To make a weaker choice when you have the option to wait for the best opportunity is to erode the career path that you have maintained for so long.

History is written by the victors, even if victory is simply the survival of your position in your career field. Over your long career, economies will rise and fall, but if you are still standing at your premier value, your community will remember only your consistent success.