Using Rule 1/52/X™ Allows You to Remain Connected to Your Market & Keeps Your Sales Funnel Full with Leads!

Great sales professionals don’t just happen, there is planned strategic work and daily tactical efforts that lead to the consistent sales that allows them to be perceived by others as great – and justifiably so. Your job as a sales professional is to recognize the differing daily efforts (work product) that can assist in generating inquiries from targeted demographics which can result in a sales Presentation and subsequent increased Closing ratios. And, that this same daily effort (work product) can be strategically adapted into your daily cadence to gain market awareness and connectivity in a virtual manner, when you can’t physically be everywhere you need to be for success.

Realize that during the windows of down time in your sales day, that there are productive constructive activities that should dominate their schedule. As an example, unless previously you have set call backs and scheduled appointments on a Monday morning (and in some cases on a Monday at any time), attempting to make cold calls or initiate new activities on a Monday can be counter-productive.

I have learned that Monday’s can become your secret strategic weapon to productive selling activities for Tuesday through Friday of every week, with one strategic adjustment – deploy Rule 1/52/X™!

One way to turn ‘cold calls’ into ‘warm calls’ (most sales professionals would rather have their teeth pooled without pain numbing medicines, than make cold calls on a daily basis) is by deploying Rule 1/52/X™. No matter what business you are in, the ability to develop deeper relationships with existing customer, is the fastest way to ore selling success, BUT at some point, you must engage people that do not know you to keep your selling funnel/pipeline flowing and new sales (sales, enlistments, donors, etc.) taking place.

A way to stimulate consistent inquiries inbound to you on your services/products is via Rule 1/52/X™. A way to reach out to never before contacted suspects or prospects and make the introduction of you-to-them in a non-threatening manner, is via Rule 1/52/X™. A powerful way to ensure that your Sales Funnel or Sales Pipeline always remains full of leads is via Rule 1/52/X™.

So, what is Rule 1/52/X™? It is a systematic approach that you do manually or you can automate this concept, and it is a complimenting selling effort with manageable marketing efforts.

I learned early in my own professional selling career the self-discipline it takes to always be feeding your selling funnel (lead generation) and if I did not do this or forget to stay on top of lad generation, I would find myself working one hot lead through the selling process and when it either closed or blew-up, all of my leads were cold or non-existent. And it only became validated as I got older and lead selling organizations and observed selling organizations that this was and is a consistent behavior flaw with most selling professionals and their organizations!

You need to set an auto reminder in your smart phone system or data base system, to remind you and hold you accountable to the deployment if this concept as detailed below, if you expect to see increased and steady ROI!

1 = Represents the actions which should take place every Monday or the first day of your weekly seven day selling cycle. Thus, the first day/wee of each month you campaign lead generation, whether that is new or re-connection activities.

52 = Represents a consistent approach for every week of the year. You commit to do this every week for at least 52-weeks before you make an annual selling review of ROI.

X = Represents a targeted demographic and number of outbound contacts to be initiated that week. Example: Identify the best 50 suspects that you want to attempt to introduce yourself to or your top/best x-prospects that you want to make a specific offer to or your top/best x-customers (active or inactive) that you want to place a specific offer in front of, etc.

Building rapport, establishing relationships, maintaining relationships and establishing your brand presence requires among many factors, your ability to ‘meaningfully’ get and stay connected to the marketplace!

So, your ability to identify the appropriate demographic constituents (existing customers, core VIPs, critical COIs, lost or inactive customers that you want to reconnect with, new suspect or prospect pool that you need to penetrate, etc.)and select an appropriate quantity of contacts that you can send a marketing pulse to on Monday. Thus, teeing up people to make outbound contact with the subsequent days, along with your other business development responsibilities ensures that you are always seeding and feeding your selling funnel initiatives, driving people to your business and/or setting the reason for reaching out to others.

The specific contact action could be a social media outbound touch-point, a direct mail letter or an email letter that each would have a powerful call-to-action message. It should be as targeted and as personalized a direct marketing approach as possible. Other examples:

• A handwritten note-card with hand written envelope (as studies reveal hand written envelopes are opened first in a stack of mail and hand written notes are read from beginning to end and not scanned!), always include several of your business cards!
• Personal letter with a suggested approach via one of your products/services that may not be aware of, always include several of your business cards!
• An email announcement, offer, request, etc.
• A faxable/e-faxable note gram and a fax-back response request form for more information or requested follow-up.
• A direct mail card announcing who you are or something great that is now available and ways for them to find out more or contact you.
• A copy of any Press Releases or press clippings that may serve as an intrigue to the contact and stimulate them to contact you for more information.
• It could be a social media video message or directed targeted YouTube posting.
• Directed Text message with a short, powerful, call-to-action.
• It could be an update on someone like them that is a customer, and was a prospect recently as they are, share the story of their new-found successes from your offering.

Brainstorm with your fellow sales professionals as to differing ways to contact suspects, prospects, customers, and in-active clients. Also brainstorm powerful messages to include.

Now cold calls become warm calls. A sales professional can now make an outbound call to a suspect, prospect or customer and the call can go like:

• If the answer is yes, then proceed with your conversational sales process, and this warm approach is not catching anyone off guard as to who you are why you would be contacting them.
• If the answer is no, then “That’s alright, why I sent it to you is….” and this is still a warm approach as it places the conversation on what was sent, they can thus refer to it while you are talking or defer to it after you have talked with them, and this is not catching anyone off guard as to who you are why you would be contacting them.

Now accelerate your selling success and increase your market opportunities by strategically applying the Rule 1-52-X™ as a CAMPAIGN approach to your data base, this will allow you to reach a winder market that more than likely your competition has never engaged on a regular basis, and truth be told, that you probably have never accomplished as well. Do not make this a major work product event, simply weave this into your normal and even unexpected daily activities, so this simply becomes an administrative strategic event flow. Campaign ideas:

• Monday – engage a portion of your regular client base or top 1-percent ‘primary’ profile prospect lists with a messaging reason to want to talk with you; Thus, feeding your funnel and making a commitment from you to them, that you will be making a follow-up courtesy call within the coming days to engage them in a consultative rapport building conversation; Then the following Monday continue onto other names in same demographic lists that you have not been able to reach, and onward onto that list is complete and then you re-loop again, and again, and again!
• Tuesday – engage a portion of your regular client base or top 1-percent ‘secondary’ profile prospect lists with a messaging reason to want to talk with you; Thus, feeding your funnel and making a commitment from you to them, that you will be making a follow-up courtesy call within the coming days to engage them in a consultative rapport building conversation or inviting them to an engagement event; Then the following Tuesday continue onto other names in same demographic lists that you have not been able to reach, and onward onto that list is complete and then you re-loop again, and again, and again!
• Wednesday - engage your COI/VIP base list(s) with a messaging reason to want to talk with you; Thus, feeding your funnel and making a commitment from you to them, that you will be making a follow-up courtesy call within the coming days to engage them in a consultative rapport building conversation, cultivate a consistent working relationship with them that generates consistent lead flow and market intelligence from their perspectives or inviting them to an engagement event; Then the following Wednesday continue onto other names in same demographic lists that you have not been able to reach, and onward onto that list is complete and then you re-loop again, and again, and again!
• Thursday - engage the list of all Prospects that you have engaged over the past 24- months and lost, were unable to convert or that dropped off your radar. with a messaging reason to want to talk with you; Thus, feeding your funnel and making a commitment from you to them, that you will be making a follow-up courtesy call within the coming days to engage them in a consultative rapport building conversation or inviting them to an engagement event; Then the following Thursday continue onto other names in same demographic lists that you have not been able to reach, and onward onto that list is complete and then you re-loop again, and again, and again!

You can automate this this process or operate off of an excel spreadsheet, whatever works best for you, but your ability to remain connected on a regular basis will allow you to elevate You and your organization as a real brand in the marketplaces mind.

Realize that Rule 1/52/X™ helps to fill your individual or an organizations Sales Funnel to be contacting at all three levels, and it may stimulate some contacts to call you and it may even add to your bottom line, merely from a simple letter and postage stamp. WOW, low coast marketing, high yield sales.