Farming and the Back Door

I was bidding on a piece of business that was referred to me by one of the phone vendors I work with. I consider business referred by a vendor to have a high probability of closing. Smaller businesses can’t afford to have full time I.T. or telecom personnel, so they lean on their vendors and typically go with their recommendations.

The phone vendor and I met with a woman given the responsibility of gathering pricing and product information. She had experience working with my vendor contact and was pleased with his work. Since I was an independent agent, I could offer her any option available in the market place. After meeting with this woman, I was 90% sure we would win the business. So, I was a bit taken back when I followed up with her a week later and was informed that they decided to go in a different direction.

What happened?

We never met with the decision maker, that was a problem, but we did meet with the influencer. The main reason was that the decision maker had a personal relationship with the sales rep that won the deal.

In this deal, there was a third party who had no personal connection; they just happened to show up at the right place at the right time. But where did that get them besides wasting their time and effort? If the sales person that sold the deal was the back door, I represented the side door and the third rep was the front door.

If you’re dependant on earning a living by approaching every prospect cold, with no personal connection - coming through the front door - get ready to apply for food stamps and always have your resume ready.

Here’s another example:

I was assigned Yuma, Arizona for a territory when I was with Qwest. 99% of the Qwest reps that were assigned Yuma never set foot in the place. When I went prospecting in Yuma, I was warmly received and many decision makers dropped what they were doing and met with me on the spot. After 20 or so cold calls, I felt like I owned the town. Right away, I made a list of the top companies headquartered in Yuma. I figured, over time, I would own all these accounts. One of the biggest companies was a seed company. They had the competitor’s service and my prices were lower. What I didn’t know was that the phone vendor, who sold them their service, was the boss’s wife.

Yuma, Arizona seemed like front door heaven, but there’s no such thing. The only way to have long term, sustainable success in sales is to establish a dependable source of referral agents. That’s the closest thing to owning a key to the back door of selling. Keep that in mind and spend the majority of your efforts towards making that a reality. You still need to cold call, but instead of trying to determine who’s in charge and if the company is shopping for your service, focus on determining who the company’s vendors are and how to make contact with them. Have a way to incent them to work with you. If you’re professional and have something to offer, you still might need to find them some business before they agree to work with you.

I made contact with a commercial leasing agent. Commercial leasing agents are sort of the holy grail of referral agents in my business, because they could get you in on the ground floor of a lot of different opportunities. I called this guy because he advertised in a magazine we were considering advertising in and I wanted to know if he was receiving value for his investment. I thought that was a clever approach because it got him to drop his guard and allowed me time to talk to him. Turns out, he was opening a new office and happened to be shopping for the services that I sell. We met and hit it off because he had run in college, like I did, and had similar personalities. I thought I had hit the jack pot; I thought I had finally found a real estate professional that was going to send me a stream of new business.

I bid on his services but lost out because Cox was available where he was and that was the one provider I couldn’t sell and their rates were dirt cheap. I didn’t think that was too big of a deal. Then one of the phone vendors I work with missed our appointment. Then he wasn’t impressed by the other phone vendor I brought in. Then I missed the rescheduled appointment for the first guy because my car wouldn’t start. Then he went with his own phone guy. I went from the reaching the holy grail to making some guy wonder why I drove a crappy car.

Sure enough, he stopped taking all my calls and when he did get on the phone, he was short with me. It got so bad that when he wanted to return a book I lent him about running, he tried to leave it outside his office for me; he didn’t want me to come in to retrieve it from him in person. I had to find another way. I didn’t panic. I waited until I found an opportunity for him. I did that but didn’t call him about it. I waited and found a second opportunity. Then I called and I could tell his attitude had changed. He realized that it was going to be a mutually beneficial business relationship.

And where am I headed with this? If making a sale is equivalent to receiving a meal, establishing a relationship with a referral agent is the equivalent of learning how to farm. And farming is the back door of selling.