Tips to Winning New Customers

1. Use the telephone wisely

You'd be lucky to have 3 hours per day to actually sell and win potential customers. The telephone is a great tool for qualifying and setting up appointments.

• Be disciplined with your telephone selling to new contacts.
• Keep data on who you're calling and what their response is.
• Don't meet with people just because they say they'd be happy to meet with you.
• Try and qualify who they are, and how much influence they would have in terms of making a decision to use or purchase your offer.
• Always ask if there is any value in anyone else joining you at the meeting if you will be meeting with them.
• If they are not receptive on an initial call, consider agreeing to a more suitable time to call them.

Take a look at these interesting articles on effective selling via the phone.

Handout: 12 steps to getting appointments

Handout: Business relationships

2. Email with follow up

emarketing can work for you if you are disciplined and willing to follow up effectively. Just sending an email will be of little value most of the time. Suitable follow up normally within a short period of the email can work wonders. Always try and have the email ready to resend if you are following up with a phone call as the chances are high they would not have read your initial email and it may be timely to resend to them whilst you are in dialogue with them.

3. Ask for referrals from satisfied customers

Common sense but not always common practice. The best way to win new customers will almost always be through high quality referrals. At the appropriate time you should ask existing customers if they know of anyone else who may be able to benefit from the service or product you are providing.

4. Be clear on your offering and what differentiates you

In a crowded market place we all need a point of difference. Simply saying you offer great service at a competitive price is probably only a starting point. Be excited about what you are selling and remember that your excitement and enthusiasm is infectious. If you do not believe in what you are selling, I'd say check out now and do something else.

5. 3 P's - Plan / Persist / Process will lead to results

Like most things in life planning will assist greatly. Be clear on what it is you want and clearly how will you achieve that. Persistence tends to be rewarded in selling. Most customers don't say yes straight away. Make agreements with them about what you will do and then honour those agreements. This will build trust which in turn will build the relationship. Stick with a process that you know will lead to the results you want and try not to change the process too much. The top sales performers typically work and follow a disciplined process time after time which leads to excellent results.