Thinking about entering into a new market? Here are 5 steps that will help ease you through the process. Picture a funnel that represents the parts that are in the system.
1-Know Your Market-Doing your due diligence can save you time and money. The goal is to gather data to show the effectiveness of current practices and determine the viability of entering the market. Market research can provide a snapshot of what products or services might be profitable, the possible risks and who the key players are already in the space.
2-Identify Your Ideal Prospects– Write a detailed description of your ideal prospects. How will your product or service help them? Differentiate between and ideal prospect and end user-one may be the person who needs your product or service and the other may be the one who will hire you.
3-Find Potential Clients– Find out where your prospects hang out. Face to face networking can help you meet people you can’t reach by phone or other ways. Attend networking events-more than once-to anchor you in this new community.
4-Connect-Form a relationship with prospects by starting conversations with them. Ask open-ended questions to gather information and questions that encourage prospects to talk about themselves and their business. Two starting questions are: What to you like best about what you do? How did you get started?
5-Follow Up-After an event is just as important as the event itself. Your follow up actions are the measures that work to solidify your business contacts. As old-fashioned as it sounds, a handwritten thank you note goes a long way.
Guest Writer-Judy Hoberman
As a former Agency Manager, trainer and veteran salesperson, Judy Hoberman has created a company that finally addresses the gender issues and differences that affect corporate America. A true entrepreneur at heart with experience both in the Self-Employed and Corporate arenas. She was personally selected by the President and CEO to move to Dallas to bring her talent in training to the Corporate office and share it with over 100 offices in 44 states showing over 3000 agents how to break the mystery of the sales process into manageable pieces and demystify it. She was awarded the Character and Integrity Award from the field for her distinct and significant contribution to the field agents success. She went back to the Self-Employed sector taking on one more missing piece of the Sales Process and offering her 30 years of experience to provide solutions for today’s market.
Her company, Selling in a Skirt goes beyond a standard training program – it presents a method, a philosophy and a way of life for the next generation of winning sales women. Judy’s objective is to change the culture of sales teams so they are more effective at addressing the differences between men and women – both in the workplace with each other and in the field with their clients. She is committed to helping women in sales to use their own gender-based talents to make more sales; to help male managers recruit, train, and retain female sales professionals; and to teach both genders how to sell to the lucrative female market.
Judy has created a suite of workshops, seminars and coaching programs that compliment her highly successful book. Her 30 years in sales has given her both the knowledge and sense of humor about the gender differences that we should all understand and embrace instead of feeling unable to communicate. Judy’s humorous stories about how men and women sell, manage, recruit and supervise differently will enlighten you in learning how both genders can support each other’s successes in a more productive way.
Judy is the host of a weekly radio show on Cosmic Broadcasting and is also featured as “The Gender Expert” on Fox News Radio. She is the author of Selling In A Skirt, The Secrets Women Don’t Know They Know About Sales….And What Men Should Know Too. Her new book Famous Isn’t Enough; Earning A Living As An Entrepreneur was released in April 2013.
In October of 2012 she added a new title to her name when she married Retired AF Colonel Don Taylor and together they are working on a new program that addresses Gender Differences “The Colonel and The Skirt”. Look for that in 2014!