Ryan Dohrn says salespeople scare prospects by only reaching out twice: to close and to renew. Instead, make 50% of contact non-sales related, offering help or referrals. Use LinkedIn to like and comment on their posts so your name shows up in their inbox before you ever pitch.
What's going on, friends and fans? Ryan Dohrn here, your friendly neighborhood sales coach. And this week we are talking about warming up customers for the fall selling season. Now, if you're like me and a lot of businesses that are out there, we do a lot of our selling in the fall. Now, as a lot of you know, I do a tremendous amount of work, a lion's share of my work, in the media and digital marketing sales business. Do a lot of work in podcasting, blogging, events, sponsorships, you name it. But where I see a lot of folks go wrong is that they wait until the fall and then they start selling. It's like somebody flipped a switch and said, all right guys, all right gals, get out there, it's time to sell. Okay, well, it's not that those type of rah-rah things don't work, but what are we doing in advance to warm up the conversation for those renewals? What are we doing in advance to warm up the conversation to have great Success planning calls with our customers. Now, what happens unfortunately a lot of times in the sales business is that our customers will hear from us 2 times. Once we sell them, and then when we're trying to renew them. And that's just really sad. It's called bad salesmanship. Okay? What I'm trying to do is 50% of my outreaches are non-sales related. I'm reaching out to folks in an effort To try to keep them informed, keep them knowing that I'm there for them, and always trying to say, what else can I do to help? Now, one of the worst things you can do— oh, I hate these emails when people send them, hey Ryan, checking in on you. The subject line is checking in, just checking in on you. I got nothing better to do than check in on you. Okay, if nothing else, friends, get rid of that and switch over to I'm here to help. I mean, because I've never had somebody say to me, you know, Ryan, you offer too much help. Hey, Ryan, you're too appreciative. You're too thankful. But I have had people say, hey, stop checking in. If I need you, I'll reach back out to you. So one of the things you could do as a part of your warm-up process for renewals is consistently be reaching out and saying, hey, what else can I do to help? What's the perfect referral look like? What kind of new customers are you looking for? Hey, is there anything new that's going on that I can potentially help you with? That's the type of thing that I'm thinking for renewals. All right, now let's talk about new customers. You're like, ah, Ryan, I need 50 new customers to sign deals next year. All right, cool. So if you're expecting them to communicate with a stranger, you're expecting somebody to defy what they were taught, what's been ingrained in their brain since they were a little kid. Don't talk to strangers. Don't interact with strangers. Strangers are bad. Well, then add to that, you're in the sales business, right? So what I want to do is start following people on LinkedIn, connecting on LinkedIn, following their companies on Facebook, following their companies on Twitter, X, Instagram, Threads, you name it. Start liking things, start commenting on things, start reposting things, start sharing things. All of these things, friends, are super important to you becoming a known entity to these new customers that are out there. Now, there's all kinds of potential things that we can do, but friends, it's so important to warm up your customers in advance of trying to sell them. Prove that you're a thought leader. Prove that you know who you— who they are. Prove that you're relevant to them. Now, I'm not suggesting to you that every time somebody posts on LinkedIn, you're like, oh, this is an amazing idea. Thanks so much for sharing. I'm going to repost this to everybody. You know, reshare, repost as things are needed, as normal, as they're applicable. But just remember, LinkedIn is by far one of the most amazing sales resources that is out there. By the way, LinkedIn, you should be sponsoring the podcast, my blogs, the website. I will wear LinkedIn on my shirt. You really should be a sponsor, by the way. I think LinkedIn is an amazing sales resource. So when things come up on LinkedIn, I'm going to like those things, comment on those things, Share those things, become a known entity. Because when I comment on somebody's post, it's going to send an email to their inbox that says, hey, Ryan Dohrn commented on your post. Do you want to join the conversation? So it's a way for me to be put inside somebody's inbox without me sending them an email. It's as if LinkedIn is carrying my name to a new potential customer. Then what you might do is share some of your sales videos with them. Whether it's on LinkedIn or through an email, just to get warmed up for a conversation that's going to happen. It's sort of like when you go to a cocktail party, you're looking around and you see a bunch of strangers and you're trying to figure out how can I warm up into these conversations? Well, you've got to do it slowly. You don't want to come across as being creepy. Don't just jump right into the middle of a conversation. Friends, it's pretty straightforward to warm people up. Most salespeople just don't do it. Instead, you basically just start firing off a bunch of emails, calling a bunch of people and you're just asking them to defy what their parents or grandparents taught them not to do, and that's don't talk to strangers. So whatever you can do, friends, to warm people up, you're almost always gonna get further faster. So let me ask you this. You've got a big 50 list for next year. What is your warm-up plan? What are you gonna do to warm those customers up to be more receptive to you As you try to set fall meetings to sell them whatever it is that you're out there trying to sell. Never forget, friends, if this job was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're not crazy. I used to say that we're crazy for doing this. We're not crazy. Sales is a great job, friends. It will feed your family for a lifetime. Love to come to your office. Love to come speak at your national sales meeting. Love to pump up your teams, whether it's live or virtual. Reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com. All right, friends, we'll see you next week.
