Spring has sprung. Now is the time to come out of hiding and make your business blossom. The BUSINESS BLOSSOM is a way to find other business professionals who have the same type of prospects that you do. Most people would think that a realtor and a mortgage specialist would have the same customers in common. However, if the realtor only sells condos of less than $500,000, and the Mortgage specialist only does #1 million dollar plus mortgages they may have very few customers in common. THE BUSINESS BLOSSOM is the ability to break your prospects down to simple components which any one can decipher.
The more components you have in common, the more likely you will have prospects in common. Each component is a petal on your flower. Don’t assume that people have the same clients you do – create a method for politely gathering the right combination of qualifiers.
At BAO, we are looking for VPs of Marketing/Sales of “techish” companies who have Sales Reps who make six-figures, who sell a product of about six-figures, who need to meet V/C class executives. There are five petals to the blossom: 1) VP of Marketing/Sales, 2) “techish” companies, 3) sales reps making six-figures, 4) product/service of about six-figures, and sell to V/C level executives.
The keys to a good BUSINESS BLOSSOM are the answers have to be easy to obtain. I had one friend who was trying to meet CFOs who had properties with over $50,000 dollar energy bills. WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Energy bills don’t come up easily in conversation; nor is it easy to ask someone what their energy bill is. Instead he came up with a derivative: I’m looking to meet the CFO of a company that owns building with five plus stories or have parking lots which can hold over 100 cars. Now that is easy to figure out. You need to come up with petals that are easier for people to see or ask.
It is easy to ask a realtor is they sell house or condos or both. In fact, if you ask that, they might not stop talking. It is easy to ask a Mortgage broker, what is the high and low size of mortgages they sell.
After you create your BUSINESS BLOSSOM, you need to make sure that the people with whom you network, know exactly what you would like to do. It is a simple call and response.
Many times, I have heard financial advisors asking to meet prospects with $1,000,000 in assets. WOW that is an embarrassing question to ask. He narrowed the questions down to three easier questions. If you are talking with someone with a out of state summer home – I’d like to meet them. If you talking with a person whose whole family vacations in the Caribbean every year- I’d like to meet them. If you are talking with someone who trades in their BMW/Volvo every year- I’d like to meet them.
Just because someone does not qualify with all the petals on your blossom does not exclude them from the list of people you want to meet. At BAO, we would love to meet the Sales Rep who is making 6-figure selling a 5-figure product to C/V level executives. We’d also like to meet the CFO of a company selling 6-figure products to C/V level executives.
Finally, you may have to create two different BUSINESS BLOSSOMS if you have one product line for commercial customers and a second line for personal customers. When I worked at Eclipse Video in Cambridge, we sold video productions to small business, we also created photo montages to weddings.
Finally, my favorite blossom was from a friend of mine named Bill. Bill is a painter but he really wants to paint faux finishes. Now most people would think he wants to meet, handyman, carpenters, plumbers. But many of these professionals may not meet his ideal customer. Bills ideal customer is a (1) female (2)VP or higher of a company, who has (3) a child who has a (4) milestone coming up in (5) three to six months graduation, wedding, etc. His clients are more likely to do finally do their dream high-end interior wall painting when there is a reason for a lot of relatives to come over to the house. He is looking for the client that has the means, but may not have the time to manage the project. So, Bill was really interested in meeting people in the high-end wedding market - Wedding planners, live wedding bands, etc.
Each of his five petals are questions that are not hard or embarrassing to ask. And any one of the petals could be dropped out.
Have fun going through your client base and find out what they have in common and then build your own BUSINESS BLOSSOM.
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