If You're Not First, You're Last: Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition

CHAPTER 6. Multiply through Existing Clients

If you are directly involved with sales—or if you own a company that sells a product—then you’ve probably received a call at one time from an existing client introducing you to someone he or she knew who wanted your product or service. Unfortunately, this is something that happened to you, not because of you. The goal is to make this happen more often so that you aren’t waiting and hoping. Anyone can get lucky, but you want to use your actions to create luck.

Waiting around is a low-level, apathetic, passive activity that lets too many unknown factors rely on chance. You want to be—as often as possible—the generator of any activity for your business because then you will control the outcome and income regardless of the economy in which you live and work. I actually have this crazy idea that if you’re involved in an accident, it is better to cause it than have it happen to you. When most people get into an accident, the first thing they do is start pointing fingers, shouting (unconsciously) to the world that he or she is a victim. At least when you cause the accident, you can say, “I made that happen.”

I would rather be the cause than the effect. I would rather make a bad investment decision than give someone my money and have them make a bad investment decision. I hate being a victim, and I don’t trust or want to wait on that thing called luck. I don’t mind failing as long as I am failing because I go for it, and I don’t mind mistakes if they’re mistakes I made while doing something as opposed to something happening to me. The goal of these steps is for you to take actions that will generate additional opportunities and revenue and ultimately help you create your own economy.

Let’s return to the concept of using existing clients to create new clients. There are two things you must do: (1) always ask; and (2) concentrate on how you ask. While I discussed this briefly in an earlier chapter, I now want to focus on the specific contact and technology whereby I ask existing clients to reactivate others they know and help me build my business.

You will call all of your existing clients and touch base to see if there is any way you can further serve them. You’ll offer suggestions on how they can better maximize the product or service you sold them, and before ending the call, you’ll ask them to help you. “John, let me ask you—do you have any friends, family, or business associates who would have a use for or an interest in the products and services I represent?” Then be silent and let him tell you. If he says he doesn’t know anyone, say, “I understand. If you did know someone, who might it be?” It might sound confusing, but you will be shocked at how many times this second question will generate names. You will also be surprised how many times you get a name the first time you ask. Some clients will even say, “Funny you should ask. I was talking to so-and-so today and he asked me where I got mine.” Then respond with, “Great! How do you spell his last name? First name? At what number can I reach him? What is his e-mail address? And why do you think he would be interested?”

Do not ask, “Will you give him my name?” Do not ask, “Can you give me his name?” Do not ask, “Do you know his number?” You want to ask these specific questions above—not for your client’s permission. Be sure to inquire as well, “Why did you think of him?”

Business consultant and very bright business development expert Tom Stuker once said, “The worse part of earning a client’s business is that you lose your best prospect.” It is critical that you replace those to whom you sell with new prospects; otherwise, you will always find your personal production going up and down. Your success is not limited by the economy; it’s only limited by the people you know and the amount of interest you can generate in your products and services. This is how you create your own wealth without depending upon the national or global economy. Salespeople, managers, entrepreneurs, CEOs, businesses, and entire industries suffer and even cease to exist because they don’t take the time to generate new opportunities from those they just conquered. As I stated before, you cannot advertise your way through an economic contraction. You simply have to do a better job of working, creating, and finding every possible contact who might do business with you!

Learn how to activate and multiply your existing clients to create new ones. Trust me, they will help you if you ask. Ask early and often in the relationship—and keep asking. I have never paid clients for this kind of help, but I have rewarded them after the fact. I deliver a great product, service the hell out of it, do everything I can to create a “wow” experience—and then shamelessly ask the people to whom I have sold if they know anyone interested in what I have to offer. I have even used this method with people who haven’t bought from me. I remember asking one particular client who I was unable to close a deal with, “Who do you know that would be interested in taking advantage of what I’m offering you?” He said to me, “Why would I send you to my competition? I don’t want them to improve.” Then, for no apparent reason, he reversed his earlier lack of interest and said, “If you believe in what you do that much that you would ask for a referral after I turned you down; then come in and do a full presentation for me and my team!” Now, I have no idea why he suddenly changed his mind. Maybe he took a minute to consider exactly why he would not want to send me to someone else—even when he himself had just denied my services. All I know is that for some reason, that single question changed his mind. I presented to his group, and he became a great client who subsequently hooked me up with others in his sphere of influence, thereby opening the door to other clients for me.

I’ve also had people opt not to do business with me but give me the names of others who they thought might want to at that time. I’ve even earned a referral’s business before closing a deal with the person with whom I was originally working!

Famed clergyman and writer Basil King is quoted as saying, “Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid!”

The actual saying was, “Go at it boldly, and you’ll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.” From the Bible, John 16: “Ask and you shall receive.” Well, the same truths apply in business as they do in life since life comprises business and its quality depends—in many ways—upon the quality of your business. The only rule when it comes to generating opportunities is that you must generate and regenerate as many imaginable in order to prosper. So be relentless in your commitment to drive new possibilities to your business.

Don’t ever allow yourself to be misled by those who suggest that asking your customers for help could in some way endanger the relationship or their perception of you and somehow damage “the customer satisfaction experience.” American business seems to have made customer satisfaction its mantra under the misguided belief that a company that says the phrase enough will somehow magically gain market share. It’s as though companies have overemphasized the goal of customer satisfaction to the point that they are neglecting how vital it is to attain customers in the first place. Markets are too competitive and too fluid; you have to get the customer’s attention first before you can worry about satisfying them. Of course, we all want loyalty, but first, you must get a customer.

There is an almost endless list of these customer satisfaction-obsessed companies that are now unfortunately unable to deliver any level of satisfaction because their doors are closed. Washington Mutual, Circuit City, Heard Automotive, and Dillard’s are just a few of the organizations that spent hundreds of millions of dollars on customer satisfaction ads (mere rhetoric) and never delivered. The number of companies around the world that have changed their names to include words like “Friendly” or “Courtesy” in an effort to repair damaged perceptions astounds me. Changing your name won’t keep you in business any more than an advertisement that says you deliver great customer satisfaction will make satisfied customers. If you don’t know how to attain a customer in the first place and sell that person your services, you need not even bother with customer satisfaction!

Without new opportunities to replace previous prospects-turned-customers, you cannot survive in the market; you won’t be in business to deliver service, much less satisfaction. I encourage you to put customer attainment before everything and to follow it immediately with a true commitment to customer satisfaction. You must activate clients, close deals with the clients, replace the clients with new prospects, and make sure you exceed their expectations—in that order. A business owner with whom I worked once told me, “You can’t ask a client for a referral before you’ve even earned the right to do business with them.” I railed on him with a barrage of questions: “Who told you I can’t do that? Where is the rule or protocol that says you cannot do this? Who is giving you this kind of suppressive advice? Do you want to grow your business or shrink it?” I then calmed down and told him, “I know the Ten Commandments, and that isn’t one of them! The rules and limitations you are playing by are in your mind and have no place in your business.” This man’s business was failing because he was being overly reasonable in his commitment to create new opportunities.

In the 25 years that I have been in business, I have never had a customer become upset with me because I asked for a referral, and I have asked during, before, and after the transaction—perhaps too often. So make an unwavering and unreasonable commitment to activate your clients in order to generate new opportunities for yourself, and I assure you that you will expand, conquer, and take market share away from your competitors.