Everyone in a sales career is looking for more customers to serve, more problems to solve and more transactions to close.
The question is “where are you looking?”
If you’re looking to grow your business, you just have to realize that you’re only two contacts away from a million people.
Sure, you could capture lightning in a bottle with a blog post or tweet that gets shared through the social webs. Your next video could be just funny or inspiring or unique enough to go “viral.” You could always run in to the next Donald Trump or Mark Zuckerberg in line at Starbucks.
Or you could just start talking to the people you already know and harness the power of the ripple effect.
Think about this. If you know one hundred people and they each know one hundred people, that’s 10,000 people. Multiply that by their one hundred connections and you are just two steps away from…
*puts pinky finger into mouth like Dr. Evil*
ONE MILLION PEOPLE!!!!
You don’t need all of them to buy from you, just some.
The key is understanding that you don’t need to know all of them, even a little, but you do need to get to know the first layer really, really well. You need to know their names, their spouses name, their kids names. Where did they go to school, what is their favorite beer, band or baseball team? Learn their birthdays and anniversaries. Find out where they work and what their Twitter handle is. Do they have pets?
It’s so much better to know a lot about 100 than nothing about 10,000.
If 100 is overwhelming, learn a lot about 50 instead of nothing about 5,000. Or start with 20 people and go from there. That’s still over 2,000 connections and let’s be honest, you don’t have time for that many clients.
Relax. What’s your hurry?
You have your entire career to start building relationships, solving problems and having fun.