Step 5 - Closing - " Accruing Results"
The best definition of the close step I have ever heard is; “You don’t do results, you accrue results.” Which means that if you are creating awareness, generating interest, building trust, and developing desire with your networking contacts, your goals will be reached as a natural result of your networking efforts. It’s all in the first four steps of the five step process!
Stephen Convey has great advice for the close step with habit number two in his best seller; Seven Habits of Highly Successful People - “Begin with the end in mind.” Once you establish your networking end goal, you can then establish the number of contacts you will need to create awareness to reach your goal. Contacts to contracts!
The other element required in the close step is to realistically set the amount of time it will take you to reach your end goal. By way of example, if you have set a goal to set up three personal meetings following a networking event your timeline may be three hours. However, if your goal is to close one major account, this may take you an entire year. But the five step process is identical. Only the timeline adjusts based on the complexity of your end result.
Once your end goal is established then it’s all about accruing results.
In the example of targeting one major account within 12 months your accruals may translate to creating awareness (step 1) with 50 contacts of which only 20 may be interested (step 2), from which you build trust (step 3) with 15 contacts that produce five solid prospects that are motivated with desire (step 4) to do business with you.
Of those five contacts and a success rate of 20%, you can expect your goal to be met, perhaps even exceeded if the number of awareness contacts is increased.
Stephen Convey has great advice for the close step with habit number two in his best seller; Seven Habits of Highly Successful People - “Begin with the end in mind.” Once you establish your networking end goal, you can then establish the number of contacts you will need to create awareness to reach your goal. Contacts to contracts!
The other element required in the close step is to realistically set the amount of time it will take you to reach your end goal. By way of example, if you have set a goal to set up three personal meetings following a networking event your timeline may be three hours. However, if your goal is to close one major account, this may take you an entire year. But the five step process is identical. Only the timeline adjusts based on the complexity of your end result.
Once your end goal is established then it’s all about accruing results.
In the example of targeting one major account within 12 months your accruals may translate to creating awareness (step 1) with 50 contacts of which only 20 may be interested (step 2), from which you build trust (step 3) with 15 contacts that produce five solid prospects that are motivated with desire (step 4) to do business with you.
Of those five contacts and a success rate of 20%, you can expect your goal to be met, perhaps even exceeded if the number of awareness contacts is increased.
posted by The Networking Community Radio Show at
12:59 PM
