Contact, Activate & Multiply

Business consultant and business development expert, Tom Stuker once said:

"The worst part of earning a client's business is that you lose your best prospect." 

Contact 

It is critical that you sell with new prospects in mind. 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. 

Activate and Multiply

Learn how to stimulate and grow your existing clients to create new ones. Ask early and often in the relationship - and keep asking. 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, whom 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 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. 

Just Ask
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 over-emphasized 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. 

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.