· To what extent do I know the person (Know or Unknown) and,
· To what extent will they have an interest in what I am selling? Will I have to press them to take an interest or have they approached me (Push or Pull)?
When approaching someone with the desire to create a network relationship you are in a selling yourself. You are trying to promote yourself to this other person and ideally you would like them to buy you or the ideas you are offering. If this is the case then you need to have a clear sales strategy.
Two key factors that impact the success of the opening stage of a sales relationship are:
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· To what extent do I know the person (Know or Unknown) and, |
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· To what extent will they have an interest in what I am selling? Will I have to press them to take an interest or have they approached me (Push or Pull)? |
By understanding where you sit against these dynamics it becomes easier to understand the nature of the sales relationship you are about to embark upon.
If we take the model seen in Figure 12 then our relationships will sit in one of the four quadrants.
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Cold Chill – This is the tough one. You don’t know the other person (Unknown) and the pressure is on you to sell you or your idea (Push). |
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Warm Feeling – Life gets a bit easier here because you already have some form of relationship with the person (Known) but they will not have an obvious interest in the idea you want to put to them (Push). |
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Warm Front – This is the alternate position. In this quadrant you to know that the person is really keen on on getting information ideas similar to yours (Pull), but unfortunately you don’t know them personally (Unknown). |
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Hot Spot – This is the mother load. You have a relationship with them already (Known) and they have an interest in the field you want to discuss (Pull) |
Although there are clearly many ways to open up a bridging process, it often comes down to a choice of two core entry strategies, socialisation or specialization as seen in Figure 13 .
Specialization or Socialisation strategy
For example, as you drop your child off to playschool you suddenly see someone that you have been dying to touch base with. You understand that they have terrific contacts in the government and you have an idea that you want to get in front of someone with influence in the government. You are at one end of the room and she is on the other. Somehow or another you need to build a bridge across the chasm.
If you decide to use the socialization style then the approach will be to promote yourself by focusing on the relationship rather than the idea being sold. So you decide to create conversations focused on the person and not what they do for a living. Cleary in this contact an opening conversation around the children is an ideal reference point. In other situation it might be the football match from the night before, holidays or hobbies or any general non-contentious topic that ease the flow of conversation and allows you to understand the person and to give them a chance to get to know you. Once this opening bridge is built then you will have an opportunity to introduce your pitch.
The alternate strategy is the specialization approach. Here your opening gambit is to build on their interest in the topic that you want to talk about. Again, in this case if you know that the person is quite open about her contacts and is always happy to broker relationships then entry through the specialization route will seem quite natural. Once you have been able to talk about your shared interests then the social relationship can in turn develop over time.
Ultimately there is no right sales strategy because people are people and they can react so unpredictably. However, by taking the time to understand the context before brooking the introduction, then the odds might be staked in your favor to pick a strategy that has some chance of success. At worst if it is all going wrong, then maybe shift from a socialisation to a specialization or vice versa – what can you lose?
Bridging Strategies
The important thing will be your ability to switch between the strategies. In Figure 14 the route taken from the Cold Chill to the Hot Spot is quite a complicated one. The first move is socialization; this might be the time you meet someone for a coffee to catch upon things. After this you send them a copy of a paper you have written on a new product that gets you to point (b). From this they are suitably impressed with your ideas and you arrange to meet for lunch one day to talk over the areas of common interest (c). You then send a proposition on how your new idea fits with the work they are doing (d). You meet again for dinner and really start to focus on what areas of commercial interest you share (e) and then you reach point (F) where you both agree to cross promote each others products and ideas in the market.
This framework attempts to demystify the networking strategy that we all follow from the age of five as we seek to win friends and favor with children in the school playground with a combination of rude jokes and jelly beans. There is no rocket science with this approach, but it might help to make clear or codify much of what you do already. Once understood it allows you to manage the process more consciously and then enhance the sales strategies you already employ
(c) Mick Cope