How To Generate More Clients and More Sales Than You Can Handle
By Christine OKelly | November 13, 2007
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“If You Throw Enough Spaghetti at the Wall, Some of It Is Bound to Stick”
This was the motto of the CEO of the last company that I worked for and I must admit that the amount that “stuck to the wall” generated a ridiculous amount of profit for this company.
With a custom built email engine designed by ex-husband/master programmer that could send out more than 1 million emails per hour, this company literally spammed almost everyone on the planet and made a lot of money (this is also one reason why I stopped working for them.)
However, in order to take the spaghetti tossing approach to sales, you’ve got to have a mechanism that will toss a lot of spaghetti at a very large wall – and that doesn’t often come cheap.
The Sniper’s Approach to Sales
As a sniper, instead of having fistfuls of spaghetti to the toss, you have one bullet – one chance to hit your mark. You plan out your mission, set your sites, concentrate, aim, and fire. A person with a machine gun who could afford 10,000 bullets may be able to hit 50 targets by firing randomly into the air while the sniper’s approach is to hit the same 50 targets with 100 bullets and a well executed plan.
When I sold insurance for GEICO, I was among the top 10% of sales people in the San Diego office. (Let me tell you, selling a product like auto insurance that no one wants and hopes to never use is a great way to build your sales skills.)
Most of the top sales people used the spaghetti tossing approach. They would burn through calls, taking as many applications as possible to get that percentage of sales that would “stick.”
I took the sniper approach to sales, spending a lot of time building relationships on calls with fewer people. I didn’t set out to take this approach; I just really enjoyed talking to people and solving their problems and had a hard time herding them through a series of rushed questions. As a result, I had one of the highest closing percentages in the entire San Diego office. While the top spaghetti tossers had closing ratios of around 45%, my closing ratio was around 70%.
Knowing how this worked helped me tremendously when I set out to start my own business with very little (none in fact) financial resources.
Why The Spaghetti Tossing Approach Isn’t Entirely Effective For Most Small Businesses
At GEICO, the salespeople could afford to burn through calls because GEICO had already dumped billions of dollars into throwing a LOT of spaghetti on a lot of walls. Their TV commercials, radio commercials, sponsorship deals, etc, generated an endless stream of incoming calls. From my recollection, I believe it cost the company upward of $80 just to make the phone to ring. Customer acquisition costs were even higher with each sale costing the company about $500 if my memory serves correctly.
If You Read Nothing Else On This Post, Read This
The small business owner that doesn’t have tons of money to spend on lead generation and customer acquisition must adopt a sniper’s strategy – and then expand on it.
If you were a solo sniper charged with taking down an entire enemy army, wouldn’t your one bullet be better used taking down an influential leader rather than one of the troops?
In my earlier post titled “How I made $100,000 By Spending 25 Minutes and $0 on Marketing,” I talk about how 15 “bullets” generated enough leads for me to fill my schedule for two entire years. I did this by targeting my sales at influential people that could refer my services to many, many others and making it profitable for them to do so.
As a small business owner on a budget that wants to make more sales, you will often be much more effective if you stop focusing entirely on the end customer and redirect your sales strategy to target those who will recommend your product or service to their clients and contacts who already trust them.
Try this Exercise:
- Make a list of people who are already selling to your client and are in a position to recommend your products and services to them.
- Call them or email them and tell them about what you have to offer and why it will benefit them. ASK them if they have any current clients in mind that may need your product or service.
- Create a page on your website that speaks to referrers and lists the benefits of referring your product or service.
- Develop a downloadable resource or page that can be accessed only by a link you provide that will make referring your products or services EASIER. Offer this in exchange for them entering their name and email address in a contact form so that you may build a mailing list of highly targeted, influential prospects. The resources you may want to include on this page are:
- An email that referrers can customize and send to their list of contacts
- A list of questions frequently asked by the end consumer to help the referrer when explaining your product or solution to those who need it.
- Sales copy that the referrer can add to their website to promote your products and services
- An explanation of how the referrer will benefit by referring your products and services.
You don’t even need all of these steps to start generating sales/leads/work. Just doing #1 and #2 will be enough. Don’t place your efforts on hold until you have items #3 and #4 in place – these are just enhancements.
By laser targeting the right people, you don’t need a super high-tech email engine that will send out a million emails per hour. You don’t need billions of dollars in television commercials. You don’t need to dump thousands of dollars into Pay Per Click.
Building good old fashioned relationships with the right people can bring you more business than you can handle.
Topics: Business Development, Marketing, Freelancer Tips |
33 Comments »
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One thing you forgot Christine…..make sure you are throwing spaghetti and not sh**. I see too many people that just throw whatever they can muster up on the wall, and usually the wall starts to stink pretty badly.
Just my two cents. Great post by the way, very true it is!
lol! That is a great point Bunk - I hadn’t thought of that!
When I sold life insurance we used to call it mud rather than spaghetti BUT it also applied to the salesforce (of which I was one). Get enough people in through the door, get them calling enough of their friends and turning them into leads / clients before they realised they couldn’t hack it and resigned leaving the friends as fodder for the company!
You are so right about the sniper. Like you I followed this approach and was in the top 10% of the UK. I did it for slightly different reasons though. Everyone else spent hours a week driving around and pitching to people who weren’t interested. I’m either lazy or smart and decided I would properly qualify my leads on the phone before wasting time driving to fruitless meetings. In the process that developed a realionship prior to a pitch - result - great conversion ratio & more sales. The same applies to an online business. Build the relationship and trust with qualified visitors and the sales will come
Wow Mark - life insurance is definitely another product that no one particularly wants to spend money on and never wants to use. I’m starting to think that insurance sales is great boot camp for anyone who wants to become a better sales person!
To be good at selling an intangible product like insurance, you’ve got to learn to build value rather than rely on sexy product features… building value depends on knowing the customer well - and knowing the customer well means developing a relationship.
Thanks for sharing your story!
There’s a massive difference between selling say a nice shiny new BMW that someone already madly desires and say a life policy that someone ought to have but doesn’t want. The first can be fulfilled by an order taker (apart from negotiation on price etc) whereas the second definitely needs a relationship approach as you say. Direct sales like this is indeed a great lesson in life and a brilliant foundation for understanding what motivates people to buy.
Hi Christine
Once again, a fabulous post with concrete examples and inspiring advice. I really like your focused approach on building relationships and seeking first to add value and solve problems instead of closing a sale. I think this approach is also something that women can relate to more than the traditional high pressure, impersonal approach to sales.
Thanks Liz - I hadn’t thought of it that way! The spaghetti throwing/sniper approach could be used to describe some people’s approach to getting a date. Replace the word “sales” with “date” and this would make for a very humorous story
Actually heard the same statement years ago from my Mentor. And have found myself using it. The key is to have the spagetti sticky, solid and organized. Thanks for the blog great reminder
http://www.PassportMentors.com
I like that! So if you’re going to through spaghetti on the wall, make sure that it’s Al Dente and unrinsed…
We had a point where we had more business than we could handle in the “custom made” section of our business and we were literally booked solid for 7 months to 12 months…
most people waited patiently for their orders to be made but it was a terrible strain on us, I found it difficult to keep some of the poor customers entertained during this time..
I’d feel bad if we couldn’t help in their time frame but as soon as one customer would walk, 2 more would stand in line… and i felt bad not being able to make the money that an onslaught of ready willing and paying customers offer. it was a nightmare.
We worked our way through it (it took a couple of years for things to settle down) I learned how to say no… (carol taught me haha )
It was one of those dreams we all hope for, more business than we can handle but, the reality of it was less than desirable..
So, For our custom work, We use the sniper approach… for our production pieces, I think a combination of sniper and spaghetti could be do-able..
Great to hear about your successes Bob! I have had the same problme…reminds me that I’ve been meaning to write a post on creating a scalable business model!
You know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs treat business in the spaghetti or (shot gun) approach, not just sales.
They start a ton of ideas, one after another or all in tandem trying to see which one will stick. Its the like a shot gun with a ton of pellets.
The most successful entrepreneurs I personally know use the rifle method. One careful shot after another. Total commitment and total focus on the current business.
That level of focus and dedication often seems to be the difference between success and failure.
This was a great article with a wider reach that sales.
It could definitely be applied to dating if you ask me.
=)
you kick ass - good job. I definitely enjoy reading your blog and actually type you in manually (I boycott readers).
Thanks Shane - I am thrilled to be one of the blogs that you type in manually! I’ve heard Naomi rave about you guys so much that I am now a subscriber of your blog.
Christine
Shane, you could be missing out on some dating fun using the shot gun approach
You’re absolutely right about many entrepreneurs. The reason is they haven’t thought through the objectives or researched to see what is likely to work and end up jumping from one idea to the next mainly in hope something will work. The same applies to most sales people - never seeing anything through to conclusion - often with success just out of reach because they give up too soon.
Hey Mark
I couldn’t agree with you more. Focus and dedication is what get’s the final result. Their are so many fast ways to make money but, their is a real beauty in going your own course at your own pace and enjoying the experience..
You need to ratchett it up and burn out the carbon deposits sometimes but your engine isn’t going to take that kind of abuse very long…
and you can’t buy or lease a new car everytime the old one needs washing or maintance… take care of what you have, get one thing working properly before you start the next.. i think is the best advice.. you know, if they can’t make one thing work, what makes them think the next thing is going to be any more successful or easier?
60 minutes had an interesting segment regarding this very topic… the millenium generation. perhap’s you’ve seen it?
heh - the origin of shotgun wedding I assume.
Bob, do you really think your own pace is the key? I’ve had that debate running for a while. When momentum hits, it has always struck me that would be the ideal time to push hard, even if it goes against your natural rhythm.
Hi shane…
Yeah, I agree with you, when momentum “happens” it’s time to push even harder… you have to take advantage of it when it’s in front of you… but, you can only do that if you are capable of producing what your pushing.
accepting the facts in front of you (what you are capable of producing) and living in your business plan (staying focused and steady)until momentum and the ability (to take advantage of momentum) are in sync is important. Saves a lot of time spinning wheels and beating your head against the wall..better at those times when you can’t do anything about it to just relax and slow down and take it a little easy… you can’t boil water if the pot is empty..
for a mom and pop shop, you can put in a pound or a ton of business but production remains consistantly slow… So that is a time when you have to control the momentum and that most definately is not the most desirable situation…
I’m ready for it this time however, I have 2 great manufacturing partners that can produce whatever I want in the quantity I want when I want it, I have also partnered up with my suppliers. (just in case momentum finds me again) and you can bet I will push. Very hard. afterall, I have a lot of catching up to do.
Everything has it’s time… knowing when to push and when to sit back saves a great deal of wasted effort.
Christine absolutely fantastic article (yet again!). As a freelance designer and budding entrepreneur i have found (sometimes the hard way) that in order to truly succeed in business you have to build relationships!
I have alot going on right now, im re-launching my website, launching a blog, starting a new business and creating a new product and i will definitely be using this exercise!
Wow Grace! I’m so excited to hear about all of the things you are doing - that is awesome. I think for people in our industries, building relationships is definitely the very best way to generate business. Let us know when you launch all of your new things!!
Christine
[…] How To Generate More Clients and Sales Than You Can Handle […]
Christine i know its crazy! I joined Brian Clark’s Teaching Sells which just stimulated my brain and i have finally bitten the bullet and am putting some of much way-laid plans into action. I will definitely give you a heads up when these launch!
Thanks for the post. I discovered your site through a link on a friends blog and am really enjoying your style. Clear direct, a bit irreverent, fun and very useful, keep up the good work
Gavin
Thanks so much Gavin! I have just subscribed to your blog - reading it has just sparked my creative juices and caused me to realize that an online presentation is ideal for a problem that I’ve been trying to figure out how to solve - thanks!
Christine
Christine!
Great post. I’m working on #’s 1&2!
Adrienne Zurub
Author.
‘Notes From the Mothership The Naked Inivisibles’ coming out January 2008
http://chasewunderlickpublishers.com.cn
Christine. I’m not sure I have anything to add other than thanks for the refresher.
Your article stood out amongst so much comfortable mediocrity.
At the baldchemist we haven’t used “targeted mailshots”, may I call them that? But then again….
Thanks again for sharing your experience. You are welcome to use ours.
Your article made a lot of sense to me. I am not the spaghetti type, so I better get going with the other process. Great stuff, I am subscribing now.
Thanks, Dennis
[…] someone mentioned to me just a few days ago in a few comments on Christine’s post on sales at self-made, the core principles of sales and dating are pretty much the same thing. You want to make a […]
I am interested in targeting the “big shots” for that steady stream of referrals, but am having trouble deciding where to look. What ideas do you have for a Realtor? Who is selling to my clients…..everyone in sales? My clients are anyone looking to buy or sell real estate in the Orlando area. Thanks for the insight and I will continue reading! Merry Christmas!!
I hear ya Erik - real estate is a tough business!
I suppose that the obvious choices are mortgage brokers, home inspectors, repair people (many people make repairs before they plan to move), termite inspectors, and other services that people use right before they plan to sell or buy a home… just a thought…
Thanks for sharing!
Christine
Great information on targeted marketing. I’ve been using this approach for years and have never had to advertise to be the top producing loan officer in the office. I have since retired from the mortgage/real estate business and have invested those commissions into other income producing assets. The system I used to keep referrals coming has become my full time business. SendOutCards will help anyone in sales or any business that needs referrals…and to stay in front of their prospects…to benefit.
Nam
Nam@OpportunityNeverEnds.com
Some really great points Christine. I’ve started on your exercise, so we’ll see how it goes.
The problem with being very selective in targeting prospects is the tremendous amount of time that it could cost, and with no guaranty of success anyway. It’s very difficult to know in advance who might need your products or services. You have tom make a lot of assumptions and a lot of them will be wrong. A lot of reflexion and strategic thinking is made but action doesn’t always follow. Small business is more about action that about strategic thinking. I see a lot of small business owners failing because they don’t act not because they don’t think.
[…] How To Generate More Clients and Sales Than You Can Handle […]