Opportunity in All Directions

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July 2014

Every person you meet is an opportunity to grow your business.  Think about that statement for a minute.  Every person you meet, regardless of profession and background, is an opportunity to grow your business.  That can’t be true, right? It depends on how you approach the world.  If you’re closed off to opportunities and wait for them to approach you, then the first sentence in this paragraph most likely proves false.  On the other hand, if you go on the offensive and ask for what you want, then you can seize every opportunity and help your business grow.  This requires an open mind and a whole bucket full of courage, but it all stems from one premise, you have to ask in order to receive.

Let’s go on a sales call together.  You can lead the meeting, but you’re only allowed to ask 1 question throughout the entire call.  What would you ask?  

Hopefully, most of you asked for the sale.  For those of you that didn’t though, remember what a wise athlete once said, ‘you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take’.  For the sake of this article, let’s revise the rules. Now, you can ask 1 question during the sales call, but this time it has to be for the sale.  How would you ask for it?

First of all, by simply asking for the business, you’ve already reached the summit of Everest.  You have accomplished what most sales people dream of but never put into action. It’s amazing how far you can get when you simply ask for what you want.  With that said, looking back at your approach with prospects, how many times did you truly ask for what you wanted? It’s very easy to take a passive approach to this for an endless number of reasons.  At the end of the day, a sale isn’t made by an individual’s hope alone, but instead, by those who have an open-mind to go out and seize the business.   

What do you mean keep an open-mind? 

Sales is all about listening, and in order to succeed, you have to open you ears to any and all possibilities.  This is a learned practice that anyone can do at any skill level.  To give you an example of what I mean, think back to when you had to ask for the sale with only 1 question.  How did you ask for it? 

According to Professor Saras Sarasvathy of UVA’s Darden School of Business, there are 4 ways that most people tend to ask for the business:

The Straightforward Approach: “I want your business. Will you give it to me?”
The Quid Pro Quo Approach: “Give me your business, and I’ll do this for you.”
The Dither Approach: Sales person moves around a lot and hopes the customer requests the sale in that time.
The Open-Ask Approach: “I want your business.  What will it take to earn it?”

While I am in favor of asking for the business in any shape or fashion, having the Open-Ask Approach mentality truly sets you up as a consultant and business partner.  While the straightforward approach is very effective once value has been created, the Open-Ask allows you to let whomever you are working with feel in control and feel as if they are part of the same team as you.  This is powerful stuff, especially if you take this approach and apply it to every person that you meet.  At the end of the day, your goal is to make the sale, if you simply ask the right questions, you can let everyone else tell you how they can contribute to your success.

It’s amazing what you can get when you take the time to ask for it.  Remember, every person you meet is an opportunity to grow your business…you just have to ask for what you want, whether that be a sale, referral or network partner.

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