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Leverage Your Business Lunches To Maximize Your Sales Results
Written by: Leanne Hoagland-SmithArticle Overview: Do you need to meet potential customers (a.k.a. prospects), potential qualified clients, colleagues, current customers, vendors, or strategic partners for lunch? Is your goal to get in and out? As a sales professional, do you arrive a little earlier or a little late to avoid the noon hour rush? Have you ever considered that this might be negatively affecting your sales results?
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Leverage Your Business Lunches To Maximize Your Sales Results
Do you need to meet potential customers (a.k.a. prospects), potential qualified clients, colleagues, current customers, vendors, or strategic partners for lunch? Is your goal to get in and out? As a sales professional, do you arrive a little earlier or a little late to avoid the noon hour rush? Have you ever considered that this might be negatively affecting your sales results?
In scheduling a lunch meeting with a colleague and a strategic partner, I asked if he wanted to meet early to avoid the rush? "No," he quickly replied, "I definitely want to be there during the lunch hour rush."
This gentleman is a Vice President and branch manager for one of the regional banks. He understands that lunch provides the opportunity to meet and greet existing customers as well as to continue to build relationships with potential qualified customers.
Yet, how many busy sales professionals never think that lunch is an opportunity to be seen? Instead they are so focused on the person in front of them that they fail to recognize how many other people may see them.
Effective business networking is not just for those after hour events. Lunchtime is a great way to maximize current selling and marketing activities in that ongoing goal to increase sales. Depending upon your own recognition and that of the other person seating across from you, you may impress that other person because of all of your contacts. Additionally, that other person may also run into her or his clients and provide you an introduction.
Of course, you will need to demonstrate exceptional attention and listening skills as the noise levels may be high. Having extra business cards near at hand probably is also a good idea. Finally, taking the time to look around the room before you sit down and when you leave is another great strategy. You may see a client or even better yet a potential qualified customer who is in your marketing tunnel. (Yes I said tunnel and not funnel.)
Sales Coaching Tip: Sales professionals need to maximize every opportunity while still being authentic and true to their own core values. Meeting for lunch at noontime may be somewhat inconvenient, but can potentially deliver you some outstanding referrals and ultimately increase sales.
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About the Author: Leanne Hoagland-Smith RSS for Leanne's articles - Visit Leanne's website  Her book, Be the Red Jacket is a no-nonsense and quick read to help discover potential gaps that may be keeping you from your goal to increase sales. The forward is by Evan Carmichael of EvanCarmichael.com Remember if you think you cannot or you think you can either way you are right. (Henry Ford). Sales Coaching Tip: Change your thoughts; improve your results. Click here to visit Leanne's website   Business Building Check List Leadership Audit For Business Leadership Assessment |
Related Forum Posts
New Small Business Topic
- Hello everyone,
I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section?
Here's a list of what we currently have:
Angel Investors
Branding
Bank Loans
Business Coaching
Business Plan
Franchises (New)
Insurance
Legal
Marketing
Public Relations
Sales
Small Biz Loans
Venture Capital
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional
- Hi Evan,
I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional
- [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan,
I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz]
I second the request...
My entry
- 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read
- this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody.
2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto.
3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book
Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Top 19 Copywriting books
- 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley.
2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner.
3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill.
4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin.
7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books.
9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association.
11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books.
12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books.
13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books.
16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books.
17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall.
18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop.
19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley.
This should keep you busy for at least a year.
Enjoy!
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