If you want to become a part of your clients’ team and you want to become more than a vendor, change your approach. Quit being a salesperson and become a key employee.
How do you do that? You change your mindset. Think about how you would go about getting a job at your prospect’s company. If you want to land a key marketing job at a Fortune 100 company, you would do things differently than if you just want to sell some stuff to them. That’s what I’m suggesting.
1. Determine if this is the type of company that you want to work for. Would you apply to work for a company with a reputation for taking advantage of its employees and treating them badly? If not, why would you want to work for a company that doesn’t show respect to its people or their suppliers?
2. Learn everything you can about the company. You can do this online with search engines. You can set up Google Alerts to keep up to date with news about the company. You can subscribe to its trade magazines and attend one of its industry trade shows. You can become a student of its industry so that you can talk about issues affecting it and its place in the market.
3. Get to know who the decision makers are. If you want a job with a company, you’ll want to know who your boss is going to be. You should also probably know who your co-workers will be and who your boss’s boss is going to be, too. If you’re doing your homework in learning about the company, some of those names will be popping up in articles about the company. You might also get to know LinkedIn and how to use it to find names, connections and networks.
4. Learn the culture, the language and become familiar. The most important attribute you can build is trust. Show that you know them, that you want to work for them and with them.
By showing that you want to be a part of the team, that you only want to add value and that you want to help them achieve their objectives, you position yourself as not a salesperson but someone who wants to work for them.
Do the work and become a team player on your client’s team. You’ll become indispensable, unstoppable and unshoppable.
