A few nights ago I finished re-reading the book How to Become a Rainmaker by Jeffrey J. Fox and I’ve crafted a list of some key learnings we can all take away from this great book. As a quick aside, this is the same book we give out to all our clients when they start an engagement with us.
What I love about this book is that it is a quick read and has some excellent tactical and strategic suggestions in it for driving sales. It is a very good read for a seasoned sales executive to sharpen up, as well as the engineer, business owner or entrepreneur that is new to sales or who wants a bit of a 101 on sales.
I have summarized the key messages (in my opinion) from the book below:
The Customer Doesn’t Care About You
They are only interested in their own challenges and how you can help them meet them. For example, the CFO of a company will not care what golf course you played at over the weekend, nor do they care if your company has been in business for 100 years. All she cares about is how can you help them and this falls into three basic
buckets – how you can reduce their costs, increase their revenue or increase their productivity.
“Fish Where the Big Fish are”
Paraphrasing this basically means choosing markets and clients within those markets that can afford to pay for your services or solution and obviously have a need. This does not mean your target can’t be a niche market – but means a niche market with customers that have a need and have the means to pay you.
“Don’t be Afraid to go After the Big Sale”
Elephant hunting as we call it is definitely hard work and can have a relatively long sales cycle but it should be a requisite part of almost all sales plans. The pay off can be huge. Overall you need to have a good mix of prospects in your sales plan – but bottom line don’t be afraid to go after the big account.
“Show them the Money”
A classic line from the movie Jerry McGuire as well and very true. Your prospects and customer want to see a return on their investment – the more quantitative the better. As Jeffrey Fox says, “Rainmakers sell money”.
Strategically Position Yourself
During the course of your customer qualification and eventual proposal, you want to position yourself so that the customer has to make a decision either way on next steps. So for example, Mr. Smith, if we can through this pilot project and meet your expected cost savings milestones, the
rest of the business is ours, yes? Alternatively, Mr. Smith, is there anything that would prevent you from not engaging us on the rest of the business if we meet these milestones?
Ask Great Questions
Ask GREAT questions and seek out potential customer objections. This is awesome as it gives you deeper insight in to the motivations of the customer and provides you with additional sales ammunition. The more you know, the more dangerous you are.
Two killer sales questions that you could ask your prospect include:
- “Would you like to know our points of difference vs our competitor – ABC company?” Then list them explicitly.
- “What am I not asking?” This is a great question as it shows the customer you are serious about understanding their needs and also will provide you with additional sales ammunition.
“Onionize”
Continuously peel back the layers of a customers needs by asking great questions so that you truly understand what is at the heart of their challenge.
Utilize a Point System to Gauge Your Daily Work
With the goal of getting 4 points daily. This is a super exercise whether it be done formally or informally
Jeffrey Fox suggests this sort of structure:
- Getting a lead, referral, intro to a decision maker = 1 point
- Getting an appointment to meet a decision maker = 2 points
- Meet a decision maker face to face = 3 points
- Get a commitment to close = 4 points
Make it rain!
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