laura figueroa-scott

Have you ever added a friend on a social media app or said yes to a connection request and immediately got a message to buy their product or service?

I know I have.

It happened today for the gazillionth time and man…it just got to me.

I am aware that intellectually, business is a numbers game, or so the phrase goes. I just wanted to answer back that I was not a random collection of pixels on a monitor or an open wallet.

I am a person. And people like to be approached on their level.

In other words, people like to be talked to. That’s what lets us and the folks we are speaking to know they have value and respect as individuals.

I found this great infographic about the progression of a sale and I wanted to share it as one aspect of it really stood out. Can you see what that is?

By this chart, it takes seven contacts to take a person from being a prospect to a customer. No matter how you choose to look at it, that’s a relationship.

You cannot read a book on sales or attend a webinar without hearing about the importance of the followup. It’s essential to building your business and to do the important work of building trust with your prospects.

It’s also where many people drop the ball in their businesses, which leads to frustration when they do not get the sales they have been hoping for.

But it’s more than the follow up, it’s how you begin the conversation in the first place. Just ask your friend or connection something about themselves and what they do, without making a sales pitch. It’s refreshing.

You’ll find people want to talk first even though they know either you or they are going to bring their business into the conversation. By the time that happens, you will be working with more knowledge about them and they will have learned more about you and can trust what you say.

You may think this is going to slow the whole process down but in reality, it can get you where you want to be with your business faster because you will know who is truly a good prospect for your product or service and who is serious about getting that for themselves.

Doing the work of building relationships not only gets you sales, it can earn you a great reputation and make you a person with authority in your niche.

That’s always going to be a win for you.

I am always interested in hearing about what you are thinking. You can send your thoughts to laura@laurafigueroascott.me and I will continue the conversation from there!