Form your own targeted Sales Mastermind Group
13 Apr 2008
Over the last few years there has been a proliferation of networking organisations. In this BLOG I am referring to offline – not online networking. The costs of joining these can run from a few hundred pounds a year to a few thousand. I do encourage you to attend as many of these as you can but I’d also like you to consider a no-cost option that may well work even better for you if you set it up correctly. I’m referring to forming your own Sales Mastermind Group. Here is what you should do.
Your intention should be to form a group of eight to ten people who commit to meet once every two weeks for a two-hour breakfast session. The purpose of these sessions will be three-fold.
1 – To exchange market knowledge
2 – To introduce potential customers to each other
3 – To discuss any particular challenges anyone in the group may be having and advise accordingly.
The people you want in your group should be from companies who are likely to be serving customers in a similar sector to your own but are not in competition with each other. For example, if you sell office furniture, you would be looking to invite salespeople or sales directors who sell carpeting, stationery, computer systems, IT networking solutions, copying equipment, mailroom services, office electrical installations, telephone systems, mobile communication solutions, etc.
Put together a list of appropriate organisations in your district and then telephone their sales director. Explain that you are putting together this Sales Mastermind Group, the purpose of it, and that you would like to invite them or one of their top salespeople to attend an introductory meeting. You want the best person, not the worst person or somebody who is struggling. If you want to double your sales you want to be flying with the eagles, not twittering with the sparrows!
The purpose of the introductory meeting is to get a commitment from everyone to the three principles and to attend regularly. Then you have your targeted Sales Mastermind Group.