How to avoid unpaid consulting: Upfrontational Selling

Upfrontational Selling vs.
Confrontational Selling:
How to Avoid Unpaid Consulting Gigs

IN THIS ISSUE

1.    How to Avoid Unpaid Consulting Gigs
2 .   Quote of the Week
3 . Resources for Entrepreneurs and Marketers
4 .   A Little Fun
5 . Smell the Coffee

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1. How to Avoid Unpaid Consulting Gigs

If you're in sales—and if you're self-employed, you're definitely in sales—you've probably experienced an "unpaid consulting gig." What do I mean by that? To explain, let me tell you a little story.

The local chamber was having its Business After Hours networking event, and Sally, a self-employed marketing consultant, decided to attend. She talked to a lot of people—several she already knew and many she didn't. A couple of the new folks seemed promising. She exchanged business cards with them, wrote notes on the back of the cards and promised to call them the next day.

Her first follow-up call was successful. She booked an appointment for later in the week. The business was a large construction company, known throughout the local area for its quality commercial construction. Sally met with Tim, the marketing director. After they exchanged pleasantries and built some rapport, Tim said, "We've just been hired to build eight new Starbuck's stores in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. This is our first project outside of Virginia. We'd like to let the media, our clients, vendors and prospects know about this. What can you do to help us get the word out?"

Sally, who is never at a loss for ideas but often forgets to follow best sales practices, said, "Wow! That's great. If you don't have a newsletter, we can create one and send it out to all those target audiences, contact the media to let them know about the big contract and try to secure a nice business feature, maybe even develop a series of direct-mail postcards to invite others to hire your company for similar projects. Since this expands your company's reach, you'll probably need to revise your existing brochures and your website to include this new service area."

"Hmmm," said Tim. "That's interesting. Will you do a proposal with costs for me and get it to me by tomorrow?"

"Sure!" said Sally, all the time wondering how she was going to get an involved proposal with pricing completed in one day when she had several projects to complete in the next few days. But she left, went back to her office, did the proposal and came back to Tim's office to present it the next day. After presenting the proposal, she asked, "When can we get started?"

And Tim replied, "I'll have to show this to my boss and get back to you. Thanks for coming in."

"When should I call you about the decision?" asked Sally.

"I'll call you next week."

Of course, Tim never called and every time Sally called, she got voice mail. She later found that he had given her proposal to his current marketing consultant, who was implementing Sally's plan and getting paid HER fees!

Had Sally followed Jim Wilson's "Upfrontational Selling" method, she would have done things very differently and avoided giving away her expertise. Following a simple five-step process, Sally would have:

(1) Built rapport (at least she did this correctly).

(2) Asked questions to discover the prospect's "pain" and found out why he asked her to meet with him (was he dissatisfied with his current vendor?).

(3) Established a budget for the projects.

(4) Discovered how the decision to change vendors and hire her would be made (and then given her presentation to the real decision makers).

(5) And had buy-in. If she could eliminate the company's pain using the budget established, they would hire her to do the work.

When she had answers to all of those questions, Sally would have a qualified prospect—one worth investing time in.

Have you ever behaved like Sally? I know I have!

Hurry! Here's a great deal.

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Get Jim Wilson's two-volume audio CD set, Upfrontational Selling, PLUS our ebook 52 Ready-to-Go Sales Meetings (normally $104) for just $84 (+$4.50 shipping).

And you can still download the ebook and be reading it in minutes. But this discount is only through Friday, May 21. After that, it'll be 20 bucks more.

Click here to take advantage of the special.

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2. Quote of the Week

Success is reaching your goal.

—Joe Cochran

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AND NOW, A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSORS...

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Email your comments to me.

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3. Resources for Entrepreneurs and Marketers

Upfrontational Selling vs. Confrontational Selling: How to Avoid Unpaid Consulting Gigs

Upfrontational Selling vs.
Confrontational Selling:
How to Avoid Unpaid Consulting Gigs