The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes [94]
I’ve taught the concept of the Dream 100 to individual clients, rooms full of executives, and people through my training products that sell in more than 20 countries. When I run into people who’ve had some of my training, I often find that one of their favorite growth strategies is the Dream 100 concept or “best-buyer strategy.” Then I ask them, “What have you done in that area?” That’s when I find out that the missing ingredient has been the lack of pigheaded determination and discipline. These people understand the best-buyer concept intellectually and know that it is a great strategy for growing their company. But they didn’t take the time to create a detailed plan, or, if they did, they abandoned the concept too easily. When I worked for Charlie Munger, I made zero sales for four months. Nothing. But I kept at it and went on to double sales three years in a row. So this chapter spells it out step by step, inch by inch, word by word, letter by letter.
Executives and salespeople reading this book know they are not going to give up after the first rejection; in fact, they will become more determined. But most executives and salespeople are trained to try for a month or two and go away after receiving rejections from nearly 100 percent of their dream prospects. How important could your product be if you go away after a single rejection or two?
By being pigheaded, persistent, and determined, and by continually finding more clever and aggressive ways to get in front of these dream buyers, you actually earn their respect in the long haul. Everyone respects persistence in the face of resistance. I had a PR person chase me diligently for two years. I finally hired him out of respect for his diligence more than the initial belief in his talents. So if someone keeps coming after you, you begin to almost feel an obligation to reward their persistence. This strategy will show you how to win your place as the player at the top of the market where no one can compete with you.
The Perfect-World Dream 100 Sell
Here’s how it works when you are determined and stick with it. The client I had that sold OEM products to manufacturers came to me in deep trouble. The company had had three years of declining revenues and it was $6 million in the red on sales of $100 million. I trained the staff on the Dream 100 strategy to help them sell their OEM products to the biggest manufacturers in their market. As I mentioned in Chapter Two, I worked with the 50-person sales team over a five-month period with astonishing results.
The first thing we did was to offer the CEOs of the largest manufacturers in their market an opportunity to learn “the five most dangerous trends facing manufacturers.” That’s pretty hard to resist if you’re a manufacturer, especially when it’s presented by a well-respected company—which this client was. The offer letter we sent to these CEOs said something like, “As you know, we rely on the manufacturers to be successful. To that end, we have commissioned a study and found that you have some serious problems. To help make certain that manufacturers are successful, we are now making this information available at no cost to you.” You’ll notice that I use this approach often. When you seek to serve your industry, it justifies your offering to do this for them. As previously stated, if you really want to serve your market, do some research that will be of value to them. Apparently, our letter was compelling, as it resulted in a 7 percent response rate. Most direct mail is lucky if it receives a 1 percent response rate.
Two weeks later we sent another letter offering the free education, but this time we included a Rubik’s Cube with the following headline: “This Rubik’s Cube has more than four billion possible combinations. Fortunately, there are