Here’s A Little Used, But Highly Profitable, B2B Sales Tip
Do you take the time to query the employees of any of the firms you sell to ?
If not, you’re not alone.
When I’m doing phone consultations in the evenings, I always ask this question and most of the time, the person on the other end of the line goes silent for a few seconds.
They know they should, but they haven’t been doing it.
Mike’s Technique : Don’t interrogate ‘em. If you do, they’ll tell their boss. Just use the casual ol’ Dr. Phil technique and ask, ” How’s that workin’ for ya ? ” They’ll do the rest of the heavy lifting for you.
Since I go to construction jobsites all over the state, I’m fortunate enough to get to talk to the employees of the firms I sell to without the owner being anywhere near us.
I get my best intel while the wind whips around us, while the rain pours down or while the sun bakes our brains.
They tell me the flaws of the products supplied by my competitors.
They tell me what they like and don’t like about my products.
They tell me what their boss likes and dislikes about each of the companies he buys from.
Those are million dollar tips, just like the one in the graphic at the top of this post.
If you’re reading this post in an RSS feed reder and can’t see the graphic, you really should click thru and see this one.
Yes, that’s a shameless way to try and get page views and I may try to do more of it 
Mike’s Moral : Don’t discount the facts and figures you can glean from the lower ranking, yet incredibly insightful, employees of a current, potential or former customer. The smartest person in it doesn’t always own the company.
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4 Responses to “Here’s A Little Used, But Highly Profitable, B2B Sales Tip”
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Couldn’t agree more Mike. As a matter of fact, I would add one more upside. While you are befriending these “subordinates” to help your career, they are making their own moves. They are either going to stay where they are (in which case you will always have a friend on site), they are going to rise up the ladder to a position of decision making (where they will remember the one guy who treated them like someone whose opinion had value) or they will leave and go to a competitor (where hopefully they will remember you for the aforementioned reasons).
Either way, you really have no downside. You never know where a person will end up or how your paths will cross.
And i could tell you from experience….they ALWAYS remember the guy who gave them the time of day and valued their opinions.ALWAYS.
Thanks Jamie.
That addition made this post much, much better.
I’m blessed in that I just generally like people, whether they’re ordinary, average people or super successful doesn’t matter, because they have something they know that I need to know.
Always.
Couldn’t agree more. At one point in my consulting career, I was hired several times as a “turnaround specialist,” and this was the VERY FIRST (and sometimes ONLY) thing I did:
1) Survey EVERYONE in the company– top to bottom. Ask basically four questions:
1- What works?
2- What doesn’t?
3- If you could get rid of one thing, what would it be?
4- If you could do MORE of one thing, what would it be?
2) Throw out all the responses from senior management. For the most part, they’re the bozos that caused the problems in the first place.
3) Correlate and summarize the results, coming up with 3 specific recommendations– almost exclusively the result of the surveys (though not necessarily telling sr. management that’s where the ideas came from– they sometimes tend to discount the “little people.”)
4) 9 times out of 10, they’d tell me I was “brilliant,” and want to hire me to implement the recommendations. If the payoff was big enough and I felt they would REALLY follow through, I might consider it.
The moral of the story: Often, there is WISDOM in the rank and file. The solutions to most companies problems are already obvious to most folks who have to deal with it themselves day in and day out.
Smash the upper management BS-o-matic, haul that “dead moose” carcass (you know, the one nobody wants to talk about) off the conference room table, and harness the knowledge already buried in the organization.
————
Best part of the story? As you pointed out, just by listening the the “worker bees,” I made friends for life with whom I had great credibility as I worked within their own organization for change and even as we all went on to different “lives” in our careers.
Hey Kurt,
That was a fantastic addition to our conversation. Thanks and I appreciate your input.
Come back soon and please continue to add your thoughts.
The only bad part was you just gave away a million dollar turnaround strategy