Growth Dynamics Get Down

Situation: 

It drove Izzy crazy, and he had no clue what to do about it. Day after day, email after email, Izzy sent messages that were honest, professional and ineffective. His subject lines told the truth in short comfortable requests for the recipient to please read the message. In short, Izzy felt like all his email correspondence was going into black hole where no one read them or responded to them. He knew that getting some traction with his new line of beverages would be a challenge, but this was downright agony. Was everyone in the world so cold and callous that they just did not bother to send a reply, even if it was thanks, no thanks? 

I want to talk about a little sales strategy here and it's something that over the 30 plus years that I've been in this business, is one of the things that sort of annoys me more than anything else that I hear business development people doing out there. They do what I call "drive-by disqualify". They decide that it's not worth it to make that call, to pull into that driveway, to knock on the door, to go ask someone to have a business conversation.

Situation: 

You just realized that you sell a commodity, and all that feature and benefit propaganda the Research and Development specialists fed you sounds exactly like the competitor’s features and benefits. Now you must find a way to re-invent yourself so that you are not just another “me, too” person trying to schedule a sales call here, there, and everywhere.

It's time for another one of those Friday fast tips from Growth Dynamics. I'm Charlie Hauck, President and CEO of the organization and I want to bring up a topic that I'm sure a lot of you've heard about in your professional and personal lives. I want to take another stab at the idea of the value of time and getting things done.

Symptoms:

Have you ever been part of a sales call where there seemed to be little structure, where both parties seemed to be on different pages, where expectations were not met, and little was accomplished? Even worse, you expected something positive to occur but simply got a lukewarm response such as, "I need to think it over. Call me in a few days." Opportunities are squandered and the buyer seems to be in control.

Hey, I've got kind of an offbeat topic to talk to you about today. Real quickly, I want to bring up this idea of what we call, "wishy-washy" language.

Symptoms:

"Bulldog" was his nickname and he was proud of it. Guido spent years proving that no one could escape him once he made you a prospect.

Hey, welcome back, everybody. It's nice to have taken a couple of weeks break, gotten away from things for a little bit. I needed to vacation. I feel reenergized and back to offer another Fast Tip Friday moment from Growth Dynamics.

Symptoms:

Matt is looking at his calendar and doing some planning, knowing that many things he does look too much like random acts of mindless behavior. Looking back on past months, he feels like he was scrambling and playing catch up all the time instead of having that feeling that he had some deliberate control of his actions. He wants to get back that feeling of being on a roll, where it's like running downhill instead of uphill all the time.

Hey, I had an experience earlier today that I thought I'd share with you. At the core of business development success, and I think at the core of relationships success, there's one issue that is paramount in creating the type of healthy, respectful, mutually beneficial relationships, not just in the business development world, but in all parts of our lives.