"Making the First Sale…an Easy Sale!"

At Pti we have a simple philosophy when it comes to business development and it’s this:

Life is a boomerang and the first thing we’ve got to do is add value. Whenever we’re holding our internal marketing and sales meetings the focus of the discussions is always how far are we throwing the boomerang? – how many people are we touching? – how much value are we adding?

You see, I think there are two bowls in life – there’s the rewards bowl and there’s the contribution or service bowl. I know from my personal experience that too many times, people are staring into their rewards bowl wondering why its not full to the top – rationalising and coming up with explanations – when one of the key reasons is sat right along side.

They’re focused on the wrong bowl!

Add phenomenal value first – plant the seeds – nurture and develop the relationships – EARN the trust of your clients and you’ll never need to worry about the rewards bowl.

However – you can only do this by focusing on the service and contribution bowl – being relentless and consistent in the value you add.

Or in the analogy of throwing your boomerang often enough with the right messages and over the right area and all the rewards of your efforts will come back.

Part of this philosophy is centred on:

"Making the First Sale…an Easy Sale!"

And the easiest sale for me is something that’s FREE.

So, let me run this exercise with you as if I was sat in your office, face to face and we’re brainstorming some strategies of how to bring this idea to life.

I’d start with a:

Focused Question….

How can we make the first sale an easy sale?

Let me give you a couple of examples of how we do it at Pti:


Example 1: The Pti ezine….

Every two weeks 18,553 people receive the Pti ezine. It takes just over 20 minutes to send out from our server. I’m sure you’d agree the content is focused, value adding and there are ideas which you can instantly apply in your business and life. On average, every time the ezine goes out we have 50 plus new sign ups just from the current subscribers forwarding their copy onto friends and business contacts.

So not only are we adding value to our existing Clients, we’re also driving our brand awareness and attracting quality prospects into our potential sales funnel – all through one simple strategy – our Pti ezine.


Example 2: Special Reports and Booklets….

This is another great strategy for making the first sale an easy sale. I have a business contact that created a series of guides for their business. They are in the interior fit out business – high end – large value contracts. A very competitive market.

The titles were really sparky:

+ 23 Workplace Strategies to Boost Your Bottom Line Without Firing Anyone
+ The Ultimate Guide to Office Fit-Out
+ 51 Steps to a Successful Office Relocation
+ The Office Occupier’s Guide to Selecting A Fit Out Specialist

Not only did this strategy allow the business to throw their boomerang far and wide – adding real value, it also ramped up sales dramatically (Over £1 million in extra profit in just 2 years – now that’s business growth!)

We use Special Reports at Pti - you’ve probably seen the latest one I’ve created all about Training ReDefined

How to create a Five Dimensional (5-D) Learning Experience through sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

We also have one centred on Client retention (details at the end of this ezine)

Some more examples…

Here’s just a couple more examples of ideas we’ve used with our Clients and for ourselves:

+ Low cost or free seminars
+ Teleconferences
+ Speaking at conferences, networking events, breakfast meetings
+ Blind bonuses
+ Case studies of similar businesses
+ A free business consultation – one of our Clients offers a Free 27 Minute Print Consultation for potential new Clients. This is a real WIN/WIN/WIN as it opens doors for them – they add real tangible value, earn the trust and on the back of it develop the relationship and secure quality business
+ And so many more – however I’m sure that’s enough to stimulate your thought processes


Summary…

So there you have it. My suggestion is that you block out some quiet time for yourself or with your team and spend some time personalising and answering that focused question for your business:

How can we make the first sale an easy sale?

Written by Royston Guest - Pti International Ltd.