Yesterday I shared my best kept sales secret with you. It was about what I call “coopetition” and involved Jason, a billboard salesman and Your’s Bruly back in my ESPN Radio days. Using coopetition (cooperating w/ your competition) we practically doubling our sales. If you missed it, you’re forgiven. That article is right HERE and in it I teased part deux which is right here…
By utilizing coopetition, we each became a far more valuable resource to our respective clients. And by walking each other into doors that were previously closed, it made us both more money.
These weren’t cold calls, they were warm introductions. And as I quickly learned, warm introductions result in bigger, better and faster sales.
And it was a hell of a lot easier than pounding the pavement, sweating my @$$ off, wearing out the leather on the bottoms of my shoes and being an annoying pest to strangers I called on.
This new found synergy worked so well, we added another member to our meetings, a print ad representative for the daily newspaper in town.
Any time one of our warm introductions resulted in a sale for the other person we gave each other a nice finder’s fee for “assisting on the sale”.
And what’s this have to do with you?
Several things…
- Most importantly, it’s easier to preach to the already converted so to speak. The enlightened few who are willing and able to invest in their own success. Which in most industries is the top 1 or 2 % of your market. The other 98% are a waste of time, you won’t convert the skeptical masses. They’re either too cheap, too lazy or both.
- We were each no longer “just a sales rep” pushing “a product”. We became a valuable resource for our customers and for each other.
- We wasted FAR less time prospecting.
The biggest benefit was that instead of calling on strangers who didn’t advertise or didn’t see the value in doing so, our time was spent with decision makers who already believed in the power of advertising and we simply became another channel to help them drive more sales.
We walked in doors where the prospect was already pre-sold because they knew, liked and trusted their advertising rep who made the introduction.
It’s the whole concept of synergy. In whatever industry you work in, there are people who can help open previously closed doors for you. And you can do the same for them.
How much easier would that make your work?
Tons.
Stop treating others like competition and start helping each other win, it’s called coopetition. Winners help other people win.
Want some other winning strategies like you just learned about?
They’re right here in this book which was born of my time working for ESPN radio. And for a limited time it’s on sale for 50% off at just $9.99