I am writing this short post while trying to find 50 gently used winter coats in 5 days. This morning, it struck me that I wasn’t following my own typical sales process of involving anyone who would listen directly in success. Not my success but the success of the project, the product, the idea. Whether it is to buy and install software, help you find customers, or attract people to your website, its the same. You ask, you ask again, you ask for help, you ask until you can’t ask anymore.
Being part of a charity organization, we’re always doing these things but this week, right before Christmas, it is especially difficult. Most folks already cleaned out their closets in the fall. If you ask for help, if they can, people will help you. It’s human nature. Thank god!
What’s more, if they’re invested in your success, they’ll help more!
For this project, I did the usual thing. I went to my network and asked them to donate. I had moderate success. I kept asking and a few more donated. This morning, I woke up and changed my strategy. I asked my network to commit to finding me a certain number of coats. Now, why didn’t I think about that before! We’ll exceed our goal by tomorrow.
Here’s the process in highly abbreviated form:
- Call your network. Ask for their buy-in and leads. Call those target customers (“Terry sent me!”)
- If your target customers don’t have business or need, asking for their help, ask them to engage and suggest ideas for you to success.
- (New to some of you!) Call back. Thank them.
- (New to some of you!) Send a written thank you or something that will make them remember you and your sincere thanks. If you weren’t sincere, you wouldn’t be sending cards, right? Its not a physical task, it is the effort to remember that people respect.
If they don’t have time, perhaps they aren’t human! Perhaps they never help other folks. Perhaps the dog you’re selling won’t hunt. At least you’ll be one step closer to your goal. Ask! Ask Again, Ask for Help and Keep Asking! (And Thank You for visiting. If you liked this post, please post your comments and other ideas!)
