Habit 43: Break Bread with Them

September 15, 2017 Selling Comments Off on Habit 43: Break Bread with Them

To continue with the “Account Development Habits”, let’s look at Habit 43: Break Bread with Them.

I’m sure that you would agree that the sales lunch or dinner can be abused. I suggest that this is an incredibly powerful tool to build relationships and sell. It simply depends on how and when it’s used.

Building credibility and building relationships is crucial to your success. Early on in a career it is pretty hard to spend all of your time on “C’s” (quotes submitted for approval) and “D’s” (quotes approved for purchase) as they simply do not exist.

However, as your book of business develops and the number of “C’s”, “D’s”, customers and “Target Accounts” increase, you can structure not only sales calls but working lunches and dinners. Focusing lunch and dinner meetings on “C’s” and “D’s” can be the best use of time and money. I also believe it is critical to relationship building.

There’s something about breaking bread in a casual environment that promotes trust and a calm confidence. Relationship building is crucial as people buy from people they know like and trust. A simple lunch or a simple dinner can go a long way to building these all-important relationships.

I have one exception. I strongly advise not entertaining people that the salesperson does not like. This is a dangerous situation and should be avoided.

Habit 43: Schedule a lunch or dinner meeting, daily, with “C’s”, “D’s”, customers and/or “Target Accounts.”

“A Habit” is not work, but just a thing that is done every day and scheduling a lunch or dinner meeting, daily, with “C’s”, “D’s”, customers and/or “Target Accounts” is critical to your success in sales and can easily become a Habit.

TIME MANAGEMENT.  For Top Performers every task is planned and focused on the goals that earn the results.  Top Performers plan and then engage.  They act on their plans, they work hard and they get results.

Coaching these skills is a critical part of what we do.  We are here to help you develop and implement your Strategic Plan and coach and develop the skills to implement the plan successfully.