Who is the captain in your relationship?

How many relationships do you have? Can you even count them down? Can you name the 10 most important business relationships you have?

Like every good ship, the relation-ship also needs a captain. If you let your relation-ship sail all by it self in the rough sea of the business world – you're most likely to find your ship resting on a sandbank.

So how can you take command and steer your relationship to your harbor?

1.     Understand that relationship need maintenance and as the captain – it's your responsibility to do it, by casual meeting, weekly newsletter, social connection and so on.

2.     Follow your relationships (like an admiral follows his fleet), be aware to weak relationships and make sure to strength them.

3.     Steer your relationships to the place you want them to sail, but never forget that the other side is also trying to steer to his "promised harbor" if you'll try to skip this stop – your ship will sink.

4.     Few relationships well maintenance and well steered are far more valuable than a lot of poor relationship that you can't steer.

5.     Always be on the lookout for more relationships, always define goal, find the right connection and use your existing relationships to build a new relationship.

Good salespeople build relationship and send it to sail by it self, excellent salespeople are the captain of their relationship and they steer it well through the roughest water to safe harbor.

The harder the training the easier the battle

Basic training

In the army this motto gets an entire new meaning, but in sales this phrase is important as well.

Since the last financial crises 2 years ago it seems that the economy is still limping, sales people all over are in the middle of a war, a war to success, a war to earn, a war to stay.

In war only the well trained, well equipped and well planed survive.

If you want to win you need to practice, hard. And the meaning of practice in the world of sales is similar to the way we use to practice in the army.

First – we start be learning and practicing the basic, and in sales the basic practice start with listening, perhaps the most important skill in the sales world. My advice is to start practicing by simply asking someone a question (it can even be a complete stranger) and listen to him, try to see how much information you can remember from that talk. Try to practice your memory, try to remember without writing, that way you will be able to look at your client while talking.

Another important skill one most practice is, well, the most slandered field: cold calling.

Unlike what many people think – cold calling doesn't necessarily involve phone. A cold call can be (in my opinion) walking into someone's office and asking for a meeting, calling a number someone gave you – any interaction you have with someone how don't know how you are – that's clod call.

How to practice? Well, that's not that complicated task. Pick up the phone, take a drive and try to get some appointment simply by walking into someone's place.

The importance of the basic training is to get used to the felling of doing it. You need to be able to do those thing naturally, as if you've doing it your entire life.

We'll meet again for the second part of basic practice.

Write me and tell me how you deed: nitay.alon@gamil.com

 

קשר אנושי בעולם דיגיטלי

עולם העסקים משתנה ללא הרף. חידושים דיגיטליים משנים חדשות לבקרים את מה שידענו והאמנו בו.

הרשתות החברתיות הוסיפו נדבך נוסף ומשמעותי למהפכת האינטרנט שעוברת על עולם השיווק והמכירות בעשור (וקצת) האחרון. המושג "Social Boom" מתאר אולי טוב יותר מכל מושג אחר את השינוי הרדיקלי שעובר על עולם העסקים בכלל ועל תחום השיווק בפרט.

נדמה שהיום ניתן לאתר, למכור ולתת שירות ללקוחות – מבלי לפגוש אותם ולו פעם אחת (לראיה – Amazon.com, Ebay.com והרשימה ארוכה עד בלי די...). אם זאת האמת הרי שבהרבה תחומים הקשר האנושי הבלתי אמצעי נשכח ובוטל, כי אין בו צורך. לא בכדי לפני מספר שנים הוספד (שלא בצדק) תחום המכירות.

יחד עם זאת, אני מאמין שהיחס האנושי חשוב היום יותר מתמיד. בעולם דיגיטלי אין תחליף לקשר הפשוט בין 2 בני אדם. יותר מכך, לדעתי לא יהיה תחליף לקשר הזה, עם כל השכלולים הטכנולוגיים שקיימים היום – בני אדם רוצים לעבוד מול בני אדם.

לכן היחס האנושי ללקוחות (פוטנציאליים או קיימים) קריטי. לא רק מהירות התגובה לבקשה באינטרנט, לא רק שירות לקוחות מתקדם. היחס חייב להיות "כמו פעם" פגישה מסודרת בין שני בני אדם או יותר. הקשבה כנה ופתירת בעיות של הלקוח היו ונשארו אבני היסוד של תחום השיווק והמכירות מימי הנחש בגן העדן ועד היום.

לסיכום, למרות הכלים הנהדרים שיש ברשותנו היום שבעזרתם ניתן להגיע ולסגור עסקאות עם לקוחות בכל העולם בכל רגע מבלי לצאת מהבית, רק מי שייתן יחס אנושי בלתי מתפשר – יזכה בהצלחה.

Stop blaming the system – start playing the Game!

Many young entrepreneurs enter the world of business loaded with dreams: independence, wealth, power etc.

But they soon face reality, and reality is this – when you're the boss, secretary, account manager and (most important) – the salesman, well you need to work harder and to exceed in your actions – or else, give up your dreams.

Now, regarding the finance and organization of your business – you can find help or outsource, but selling – unfortunately, that's un-outsourced.

Why? Because you are the only one how knows your business, knows how are your clients and most important of all – how you can help them.

So, what are you so afraid of? Failure? Rejection? Disappointment? 

If so – then entrepreneurship isn't for you. And if your not afraid – well start selling – if you don't know how to do it, just keep on reading.