Give before you get. Make a deposit before a withdrawal. Qualifying first, merely gives you the ticket to turn up to play the main draw. All these maxims apply (with interest!) for the sales system redesign attempting to cross from an existing market into a new one. The mindset to take into such a pursuit is characterised by “earning the right”. Without, your target may be unwilling to make time for you, or even worse, not return your left messages or reply to your requesting emails.

So…don’t ask for time to spotlight your product/service. Ask for time to give and share powerful insights. And to do this with any credibility, you must do the hard yards prior, to build relevant and powerful insights. Consider surveying a dozen or so industry leaders on the critical success factors of the day. Ensure your survey design has some natural linkage to the problem your product/service solves. Collate and analyse the results. Derive the insights. But don’t stop there. Convert this piece of research into a different survey that will allow you to survey your targets and pit their answers against the emergent trends from the industry leaders. A kind of benchmarking exercise. Most people like to see how they compare to esteemed leaders. In so doing, continuously “tip” the additional data sets collected with every interview into an ever-growing pool of industry data. A powerful weapon in your sales system. You will become an industry thought leader…especially if you can get it published.

Most importantly, use this exercise and your fresh insights as your hook to get appointment time with your targets. Offer to…

• Give powerful insights
• Benchmark the target against the industry leaders critical success factors ratings
• And then, and only then, position yourself to earn the right to demo how your product/service can best solve the problem.

Something more to continue reading? Check out : The Challenger Sale = Brilliant for your sales system… BUT… there is a missing piece (part 2)