Givers Gain

Written by Jeremy Miller

Creating conversations to engage your prospects

3% of your market is buying right now. These are companies issuing RFPs, bringing you in for demos and requesting quotes. If you aren't talking to these companies, you can guarantee they are talking with your competition. They have a need, and they will buy to satisfy it. You can spend all day looking for these companies in a buying state, which is the typical sales process, or you can catch their attention sooner. By changing the way you engage your prospects, you can be the "first call" when your prospects begin to shop.

Sales people spend their days searching for companies that are buying right now. These are the prospects with the highest potential of closing quickly, but they are also the most competitive opportunities. Considering how small your market of active buyers might be, prospecting for companies in this 3% state can be daunting. If you are targeting a list of 1,000 companies that fit an ideal prospect profile, then only 30 are buying at any given time. If you aren't in the right place at the right time you won't get the sale. No wonder cold calling is such a demoralizing process. It's all about getting lucky, but there is a better way.

Giving 97% of your market is not buying today. They may have made a purchase recently, their attention could be elsewhere or they are happy with the status quo. It is also possible that they will never be interested in your services. A third of your market will probably never work with you based on price, fit, service offering or some other reason. So that leaves 67% of your market that aren't buying today, but eventually they will be. Here lies the real gold.

Traditional sales and marketing tactics are not effective to engage a non-buying audience. The audience isn't buying, and they aren't listening either. People are bombarded with marketing messages daily, and to deal with this information overload they tune out anything that isn't relevant right now. So the real question is how does your company engage a non-engaged audience?

Givers gain. When you are engaging the top of your funnel a different kind of conversation is required. It's not about marketing – it's about giving value to your market when they aren't in need of your services. There are lots of ways you can engage your market in a non-selling fashion. Look to the big topics in the media such as the environment, childhood obesity and our aging population to get ideas. These are topics that companies can have a significant voice in.

Food for Tots (FFT), a contract catering service based in Toronto, created a conversation based on their core strengths. They provide healthy and delicious meals for childcare centers, nursery schools and preschool programs. They recognized they had much more to offer their market than just catering services. They are experts in feeding children, and have a wealth of knowledge they can share with their customers, prospects and parents. To share their expertise they created Healthylicious, a movement to provide children healthy and delicious meals.

Brian Crew, General Manager of FFT, likens the program to the Intel Inside campaign, "Healthylicious allows us to talk directly to parents. These are our customers' customers. Parents are looking for ways to feed their kids healthy and delicious foods, and we can share ideas they can bring into their homes. At the same time, they get to know the company who is behind feeding their children during the day."

Heathylicious is more than a marketing program. It is a tool for sales people. Crew explains, "The sales reps like it, because it gives them something to talk about other than catering services. It is a fun and catchy idea, and people can really get involved in the conversation." The Healthylicious conversations sales people are having with prospects and parents are not about selling features and benefits. They are about the children and their needs. It's non-threatening, and more importantly it is engaging.

Food for Tots recognized they needed more than typical sales and marketing programs to engage their market. They drilled down to their core values, and the words "healthy" and "delicious" came up time-and-time again. By focusing on elements that they are passionate about, they were able to bring that passion out in new ways to their market. The end result is they are providing content and education for free. The benefit for FFT is name recognition and a desire for parents to put their kids into childcare centers that have Healthylicious meals.

Creating conversations at the top of the funnel, like Healthylicious, is a fairly major undertaking. It draws on the creativity and efforts of people across the organization, but the sales force is instrumental in its success. As sales people we know what customers are talking about, and we can spearhead ideas to engage them. The program is sold internally by getting the whole organization involved to live the brand, but the hard ROI is in the leads. When your market is fully engaged in a conversation you achieve a lofty position: the "first call" when your prospects are ready to buy.

The first call is the best place to be in a buying process. You don't have to convince your prospects why they should consider buying your service. You get to help them frame the problem, and why your solution is the answer. If you play your cards right, you can even block the major competitive forces. Why? Because the customer has been paying attention to your organization and what it has to offer for far longer than the sales cycle. You don't have to educate them on the business or why it is a great organization. That's already done. Now you can focus on helping the customer solve a problem.

In our Googlized world, the competitive forces for our products and services are astronomical. Customers can decide whom they buy from and when. If they don't like a vendor, they can look online for alternatives. In order to compete companies have to engage their market long before their customers are ready to buy. When you give value to your market you will move beyond the 3% of companies shopping right now to the 67% of companies that will be soon.

Jeremy Miller -
	Jeremy Miller is a Partner with LEAPJob, a sales recruiting firm in Toronto, Canada. LEAPJob recruits sales professionals and sales leaders for many of Canada's most recognized companies. Their clients range from the Top 50 Employers to smaller organizations building their first sales force. For more information visit http://www.LEAPJob.com . You can reach Jeremy at 905.281.3090 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Read More >>
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