Sandler Trainers: Jim Stephens and Craig Lyons http://www.chief.sandler.com/
Entrepreneur Radio: Shaun Buck https://www.thenewsletterpro.com/
~~The Introduction: An Introduction to Introductions, or Craig Lyons and the Techniques to Prospect Well Enough to Avoid It~~
Craig spoke recently at a Sandler Conference on how to improve networking skills. Some people are naturally great at networking, others can be hostage in the situation, and more can network for the purpose of self-indulgence. Craig provides strategies for facilitating a conversation that might lead to a future conversation and what strategies are effective in networking.
For Craig a thirty-second commercial is a quick chance to introduce ourselves, why we’re in business, and how we help people. Too often networking events begin with very mundane conversations and the thirty-second commercial functions as a pitch to spark a conversation. But, while at networking events, we learn to tune out anything that is in the white background of noise. We tune out commercials that people typically pitch such as elevator commercials.
When we think of commercials we think of TV, we think of sitting and listening. But, with the Sandler thirty-second commercial we try to take in information in a conversation as opposed to dominating a conversation. We want our conversations to be a third party endorsement of what we do, not a promotion of what we do, and Craig Lyons today walks us through the important steps of building a thirty-second commercial. It’s importance. And how to use it strategically at a networking event to engage in conversations.
~~The Conceptual: Saving Time by Speaking with Intention, or You Mean Not Everyone Likes a Rambling Man?~~
When we talk with our clients and they on board a new salesperson or a new employee they train them at the product and the service that the company provides. So when a salesperson engages something they talk about what they’ve learned, the services, and the products that they provide. It becomes a conversation dominated about them, not how they help people and how they can help produce value for their clients.
In Sandler, we believe people will tell you how to sell them, you just have to ask the right questions. And you can’t close anyone on anything, it’s up to the prospect to close themselves. As salespeople we are there simply to help the discovery process over whether or not someone will engage in our system.
The thirty-second commercial has four parts. The introduction. The pain statements. The benefits statements. And then the hook question. To figure out these statements you need to figure out why your clients buy your product or your service. Why they buy from you personally and what can’t they get from your competition. And what do your clients lose or miss out on by not buying from you.
The best place to find the answers to these questions are with your best clients and you should be interviewing them so you can share with prospects the reasons why your top clients have chosen to work with you. This market research is a stroke for your clients because they like you wanting their feedback, wanting their advice. If you engage with your clients then you are able to build a natural lead in to your thirty-second commercial. You know what you are saying is true empirically from conversations you’ve had and you can know, when you present your thirty-second commercial, that you do help people because you’ve heard it right from your clients. It builds in sincerity and genuineness and allows you to have personal buy-in because of the authenticity of the thirty-second commercial.
After interviewing your clients you should take the statements they provide you and build a pain statement. A pain statement is how you help your clients reconstructed into a third party story. We help with things like sales cycles being too long because salespeople can’t get in front of the right people. If that’s an issue someone has it gives people a variety of options about problems you solve and allows you to filter out whether or not you can help someone, as well as it helps prospects put themselves into the narrative that you are presenting. The key tie in is how you help your clients make money. The clear path must derive from the value that you can provide to another business. These proven issues help facilitate buy-in.
If you can break it down into pains about money (saving or making), time, or emotional frustration then you can build a trap to a conversation for a good perspective prospect. The opposite side of the emotional is we’re thinking about doing X, this is a logical process. Emotional is on the lines, I’m frustrated, I’m tired, I’m angry, and then we build those statements into a third party story that present the path to understanding the needs of our prospects and how we solve them.
It’s important that the business owners understand that their passion is the drive and we need to build the emotionally compelling reason. Next steps that we set up are really a conversation—a reason to get together at another point and time to look at all the issues. You can tell when there’s a reason to have a deeper conversation. You can tell if its emotional through their body language or tonality, but we don’t attend networking to go deeper. We are just there to discover if there is a reason to engage in a follow-up meeting.
You should enter networking events with straight-forward goals on what to achieve. You should set a simple goal and once you’ve met it leave the event. 2x2x2. I’ll meet two people to have a two-minute phone conversation within two days of the event. After setting up a goal then you can make sure you are networking with a purpose. You should walk away from every networking event with some return on investment and people who are willing to have a phone conversation to see if we should book another appointment. In a networking environment we must enter with the mindset of how can I help other people and then how can they help me. The best mindset is the one of referrals when you enter events with the intent to get more information and ask the question how can we help people? Prospects may want to start there and we could blossom a relationship from there.
Each prospect you engage with has their own sphere of influence and by entering networking with a giver’s give mindset then we build a more productive endeavor. If we network as a prospecting event then we don’t build the value of our own sphere which might bracket out into other areas when we are more importantly looking for other individuals.
We use emotional words in our thirty-second commercial to help potential buyers understand that you help the things that they struggle with and these thirty-second commercials then open the conversation in a meaningful way which allows us to engage the prospect from emotion first.
~~The Technical: Best Practices at a Networking Event, or You Mean I Shouldn’t Just Go for the Food?~~
The first step is to introduce yourself. You should wear a name badge at networking events to let people know who you are and where you’re from. This gives people who may be bad at names the opportunity to feel comfortable and also it allows for an easy access into a conversation from someone who might not be comfortable at networking events. This is a great conversation starter and allows people to engage with you in your first name. Our job in networking events is to rescue these individuals and incorporate them into larger conversations while we facilitate discovery on whether or not there is any reason to have a conversation in the future for some sort of relationship whether it be b2b or a more personal commodity or service.
But our goal at events are to avoid doing the talking, so we reverse when people ask what we do and ask what they do in order to get the conversation switched back to them to get them to talk the majority of the time. Once we’ve learned everything about them, what their goals, what their company does, and why they’re there, then we can craft our thirty-second commercial from its conceptual core to a technical space that is related to specific issues that they’ve had or that we’ve heard from what they told us about who they are and what they do.
The key is not to sell too much, not to push too far, we want to make sure that they are invested in a conversation and don’t get ourselves trapped into a presentation where we forget about the prospect. The key is building dialogues rather than monologuing about who we are and what we do. If we can disqualify someone before we give our thirty-second commercial then we might invite them to talk about referrals and how we might help each other out, rather than treating them as someone who is a prospect that we are looking to sell to. Two prospects for business or two prospects for referrals offers us the opportunity to plant the seeds for the future and build relationships that if we facilitate and treat fairly will blossom into business for us in the long term.
It's little steps in a conversation because you don’t know these people and they don’t know you. You’re letting them know you’re a normal person and you’re listening to them as opposed to talking. The hook question at the end is aimed at keeping the conversation going. By probing and finishing your statements with questions you pull them into the engagement and get them to speak more which helps them feel more engaged and interested in the conversation.
When you walk into a room of people networking there are a couple different types. There are people who always talk to people that they know. You can look across the room and tell who the first time attendees are. You can always talk to the person that you know, instead you should engage the people who are first time attendees and start a dialogue. Find out about what they do and help them feel comfortable. Some people freeze up in situations like that, so by helping facilitate the conversation you can build rapport. Also, be careful about having too much food or drink in your hands. It may be important to have your hands free to shake someone’s hand.
The goal is not to get all the drinks, snacks, or what not because it just occupies your time. Then, be careful who you give your card to. Don’t give them out like you’re playing black jack, instead qualify the individuals that you’re speaking with and make sure that you’re building relationships with people that can build a prospective and useful future. It’s important not to waste time, so always enter with a goal and a badge so people can know who you are and build the possibilities of starting a conversation with someone who might be a good relationship in the future.
