How to Avoid Feast or Famine

Let's rewind the clock to 1995. I was working as a salesperson for a telecoms company, selling a service that competed with BT.

I was responsible for opening new accounts, which meant picking up the phone and appointment setting, presenting the offer at the subsequent meeting, and then closing the sale on the spot, or following up until I did.

The importance of constantly prospecting for new business was drilled into me by my managers. Most of the sales team HATED this aspect of the role, but in all honesty, I didn't find it too difficult. I understood the link between having a full pipeline of prospects and achieving my sales targets, so I spent at least one full day each week just focused on prospecting for new business.

Fast forward 18 months and now I was my own boss, aiming to sell sales training to corporate clients. Many people warned me that the hardest part of my new role would be finding new clients, but I wasn't daunted - after all, I had won awards for generating new business in my previous role. I knew how to get in the door, and I knew how to close the sale when I got in there.

I was quickly brought back down to earth with a 'bump'!

Overnight, the rules of the game had changed.

My prospecting skills had not deserted me, nor had my willingness to pick up the phone. But now I had three hats to wear. I had to prospect, close the sale AND deliver the training.

Now whilst I had the skills to do all three, the time was a different challenge altogether. The main problem was that I only got paid for the time I spent DELIVERING training, whereas previously my employer had picked up the tab (via my salary) for the time I spent prospecting on the phone.

The other challenge I encountered was that whilst my prospecting efforts did yield appointments, I had a fair degree of resistance to deal with once I got 'in the door'. Sales Directors are not noted for their open mindedness towards sales trainers, and at just 26 I did not have a bulging testimonial file. This didn't mean that closing the sale was impossible, but it took a lot more effort than simply signing up a new customer at a first meeting. Writing proposals and then following them up was time consuming, and once again, was not time that I was paid for.

So all in all, striking a balance between time spent prospecting and selling and time spent delivering paid work was quite a challenge indeed. And it's a challenge that every self-employed service provider can relate to. It's the main reason why people struggle with 'feast or famine' when it comes to marketing themselves. When you're working with a client, you're not marketing and selling, and that means that when the contract comes to an end, you can find yourself in a very sticky situation indeed.

The good news is that there is a way to avoid this 'feast or famine' syndrome.

It starts with recognising that 'traditional' prospecting methods are not suitable for the self-employed service provider. They simply cost us too much in time and energy.

As an employed salesperson, I relished sifting through a list of 'suspects' and uncovering the real prospects within that list, but as a self-employed person, this was a luxury I simply couldn't afford. I needed to find a way of sifting prospects WITHOUT it taking hours or days of my time.

As an employed salesperson, the techniques I was taught for prospecting were what I now describe as 'one-to-one' prospecting techniques. I needed to replace them with 'one-to-many' prospecting techniques which enabled me to simultaneously reach large numbers of prospects.

I quickly realised that when a prospect calls YOU first, you don't encounter the scepticism and resistance that you get when you call them, so I needed to learn how to position myself in the marketplace in such a way that my target audience could easily identify me and seek me out.

And I learned the hard way that when you 'chase' business as a self-employed service provider, if you're not careful, you can come across as desperate and needy. As an employed salesperson, it was considered acceptable for me to make follow up calls after a meeting, but those follow up calls were received differently when the service I was selling was ME! Understandably, the prospect couldn't help but wonder 'well if she's as good as she claims to be, how come her calendar isn't already full?'

It took me time, but I discovered a whole new way of marketing and selling that today forms the foundation of the 'Client Magnets' approach.

And it worked. Within a matter of months, I received a call from the director of an international company - with over 70 offices worldwide. He wanted to hire me and pay me to visit 5 of his offices around the world to deliver my training.

From starting out with no track record, little credibility, I ended up attracting clients such as BT, Norwich Union, Sony and AIG.

And in every instance, THEY called me first. When I heard other training consultants talk about 'feast and famine' I was genuinely puzzled, because I didn't experience it.

So my message to you in this article is that you can break free of 'feast and famine'. The first thing you need to do is ask yourself are you trying to use prospecting and selling techniques which aren't appropriate for YOUR business? If so, it doesn't matter what the sales experts say, you need to drop them. As the old saying goes, 'if what you're doing isn't working, do ANYTHING else'!

And if you're ready to discover a new way of attracting business, which doesn't drain your time on ineffective prospecting techniques, then check out my Masterclass ‘How to Magnetically Attract Corporate Clients’.

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About The Author:

Bernadette Doyle publishes her weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, then get your free tips now at http://www.clientmagnets.com.

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