In 2015, the journey of the promotional products professional in shifting prospects to clients is more challenging than ever. With the Internet, email, texts and blog postings added to phone calls, direct mail, meetings and cold calls all constantly interrupting the day, there is so much noise out there to overcome! With fractured attention spans, nothing lasts more than a few seconds. So how do you make an impact and grab a piece of that potential client’s attention?
It ain’t easy, brothers and sisters.
There is a cycle of engagement with your top prospects to take them from awareness onto conversion and finally to advocacy. And advocacy is where referrals happen. This cycle of engagement is fueled by touches. What are touches? If you’ve followed my “Be Bold, Be Different, Be Memorable” sales tools blogs, then you know that we’ve quantified success—that it takes 13 touches to turn a prospect into a client. This is critical knowledge because 50 percent of your competition doesn’t even bother to make it past the first touch and another 25 percent drops off after the second. Conversion rarely happens before the fifth touch, and landing those large bull’s-eye accounts takes 13 touches.
Those who persevere have quite an edge.
But getting there and staying there are two different achievements altogether. Getting there can take six months to a year of constant touches. When you arrive, you must prove yourself and create the value you’ve been communicating via your touches.
And as George Harrison once said, “It’s all up to what you value.” Seriously, he said that. In 1976, on the 33-1/3 album released by Dark Horse, but not on the Dark Horse album, which was at 33-1/3. I know, it’s confusing. But it brings us to value.
Let’s talk about that value.
Earlier this year, PPAI shared an article that had a bold and disturbing prediction—that e-commerce sites will put more than one million B2B salespeople out of business by the year 2020—just five years from now. But here is the qualifier—the people that will lose their livelihoods will be the order takers. Don’t be an order and a reorder taker. Differentiate yourself from the e-promotional sites. Bring value to your customers. Create relationships with your clients. Be a part of their marketing team—an essential part—so you don’t find yourself extinct in five short years.
You work so hard to get there—to achieve this cycle of engagement with your prospects and turn them into your valued accounts. Make sure you stay there by creating value in unique and powerful ways.
How do you do that?
I’m so glad you asked. Really. If you hadn’t asked, we’d all be sitting here, watching the paint dry. There are many ways to accomplish this. We’re going to talk about them in the next article.
Be there or be extinct. And one more thing—be bold. Be different. Be memorable.
Rick Greene, MAS, is the western regional vice president of HALO Branded Solutions, a past president of SAAC and serves on the PPB Editorial Advisory Board. His comic fantasy novels “Boofalo!” and “Shroom!” are available on Amazon.com. Buy one! Or Both! Or all three, even!
