Remember back in the day when service was king? Yea, me too, and I miss those days. In the Good Old Days, businesses built relationships with their customers. As sales people, we should all have a relationship marketing strategy in place. After all that’s exactly what we are trying to build with any client right? A relationship. Let me share with you the exact way I have built a strong relationship marketing strategy around your business.

First, you must think of sales not from the mindset of “selling” something to someone, but as a way to offer value to someone whom you think is really cool.

Too often times, you find yourself prospecting and focusing on trying to make sales to people you don’t like, don’t agree with and don’t trust. Why is that? Instead, I encourage you to start making sales to people you love and respect. Love is such a scary word for a man, let a lone a salesperson, but that is exactly what you need to have for your client, love. Love enough for them, or what it is that they do, to help them better their situation.

So when you think of love, you naturally think about it from the space of the opposite sex, or whatever you are into. You think of love as an attraction and a 

commitment at the same time. You see love as something that is earned not given. You know, first hand, how hard it is to earn your love. Yet, you expect your prospects to love you after a 5 minute sales pitch based all on how awesome you are. Does that seem delusional to you? It does to me!

Now that I am opening your eyes up a little to how you need to view your sales prospects, you have to understand the steps needed to be taken in order to earn someones love. (love = business) Allow me to breakdown some of the steps it takes to earn a person’s love and how you can relate this to a relationship marketing strategy that works.

When you went out on the first date with your significant other, you knew from the first moment, whether they were worth all the effort it was going to take to get them to love you. After the first date, you did not just send them an email asking for sex did you? After that first date, did you play hard to get and wait for them to call you back, even though you clearly wanted to be with them? Hell no the answer is “no” to all of these questions.

You worked for it. You sent texts, emails, facebook messages, phone calls, flowers, love letters and anything else you could think of to demonstrate that you were worthy of their love and that they could rely on you for their most important emotional needs. You gave yourself, time, talent and treasure to this person to prove to them that you are “The One”

Chances are they made you work for it harder than most too. The bigger the work, the bigger the reward. In my case, my wife did not “give it up on the first night” she made me work for it. She made me jump through hoops and all sorts of stuff. I was willing to do it all and in that process we both learned it was not about sex, we had built a relationship that lead to sex.

You should think of your sales prospects this same way. If they lay down or jump ship and get into bed with you on the first date, that means they will do the same with your competitors. The Whales out there that you dream of getting business from, are being dated. They are not falling for cold calls, or one and done meetings. They know they have something special and they want those that want from them to prove they are worthy of them. Sounds narcissistic but it’s true in any case. Appeal to this within your prospects and they will not only give you business, they will send referrals.

Think of every sale, every email, every call and any other communication method as a part of the dating process. The same steps it takes for you to earn a person’s love that is worth it, are the same steps to landing big business. You can build a relationship marketing strategy and stand out as the trusted person the people in your niche go to.

These days people sell shit everywhere. But if you look around, not too many sales people are lending an empathetic ear to help. 99% of sales people talk and don’t listen, while prospects simply want to be heard. Just like on a  first date, if you talk over her too much, and bore her, she won’t grant you a second date, but if you listen and bond with her, she will love you forever.

If you are ready to get clarity in your business and are tired of paying for new shiny objects that distract you from what you really need to be doing to see success, we should talk. I’ve helped 100s of entrepreneurs make more money while gaining more time freedom. I’d love to listen to you about your business and see what areas you can improve on. Fill out the simple form below and we will get to know each other and see if we can build our own relationship marketing strategy together.