Blitz Your Way To New Business

By: Jodi Cross

When was the last time a business owner or representative came to your business and invited you to try their products or services? This is not a new concept and some would argue that sales blitzes or cold calling are no longer effective. But, it is one of the first projects I organized years ago at my hotel sales job.

Recently, CNMI worked with a client to organize a sales blitz of local accounts. The blitz resulted in almost 10K in definite business and nearly 150K in prospects. Like anything else effective results are in the planning and follow up. One thing is for sure, sales blitzes can be a lot of fun and they get people out of a business as usual slump!

Before you begin to organize, identify the key business goals, special offers and need periods. Create your special offers and leave behind collateral based on those pre-determined business goals.

Here are my four “T’s” to blitzing your way to success.

Teams– Sales is everyone’s job, without it your business will not succeed. Be sure to target enough time to get all the blitz materials together and team members oriented. 15-20 days in advance is usually a good planning cycle.

• Identify a leader- usually your head sales person is best suited to manage the efforts.
• Create cross-functional teams by including all departments.
• Anchor teams with seasoned sales professionals and pair them with a junior manager from another department. Cross promote specials and offers collectively.

Territories– Use Google maps or your local city and street addresses to carve out target zones with in a 10-mile radius.

• Set anchor calls in key buildings so you don’t have any problems with security.
• Target about 30-50 calls for your teams per day.
• Make your appointments on slow days like Monday’s and Tuesday’s.

Theme’s/Treats-I go back to my original question of when was the last time someone invited you to do business with them and gave you a gift. In this post e-mail, Internet world many of us rarely come out from behind our computer screen let alone thank our customers personally or invite them to work with us. My background is in the hospitality industry. We are in the business to be welcoming and hospitable. What better way to make someone feel good than to thank them for doing business with you or invite them to try your services.  This isn’t unique to the hospitality industry but it certainly is one nice advantage.  Any business owner can do it. Over the holiday’s, my broker from Edward Jones actually dropped off homemade cranberry relish to my office.

• If you are promoting holiday parties, drop of Santa cookies and wear reindeer ears. You certainly will get the office talking.
• Perhaps you are looking for more wedding business, dress up in formal wear and leave behind wedding favors.
• If you are in the spa business, try bringing scented aromatherapy and leave behind a token gift with a bounce back coupon valid for the next month.

You get the idea.

Tracking- All this effort will be for not if you don’t measure and track the results.

• Set a morning meeting and nightly recap to gather the team’s cards and tracking sheets.
• Keep a centralized report on all activities and follow up items.
• Track revenue for all business units. Just because you were looking for catering business but ended up finding a golf member prospect that still benefits the company.
• Develop an action item plan for follow-up that the sales team or other managers can pursue immediately while the blitz is still happening.

With a concerted effort and a little organization your business can see immediate results from conducting a sales blitz.

To obtain your own sales blitz tracking sheet, email Jodi Cross at jcross@crossnm.com.