What's For Lunch?

I often get asked about lunch. No, not if I want to go out to lunch. Instead, should salespeople take clients out to lunch? How can it be productive? Are my salespeople wasting time and money? What should I coach my salespeople to do? Is this or can this be an effective sales activity?

First of all, too many salespeople spend too much money on taking clients out to lunch with no purpose or return on investment of time and expense. If your salespeople engage in “client lunches”, be sure you strategize with them first, before they run up an outlandish expense account and get nothing from it.

Truly, I’m a big advocate for lunch, golf games, customer outings, etc. However, I’m not for doing those things for the pure enjoyment for your salespeople. Your salespeople need a goal and the means to achieve that goal for each and every lunch. Coach your salespeople to have a plan for a customer lunch or outing and work it. To get you started, here are four things that your salespeople can do during a lunch meeting, golf game or customer outing:

1. Account update – Have your salespeople ask the customer what’s going on inside their organization. What’s changing and what’s coming up that your organization could be involved in to add value and more products or services.
   
   For example, a pending change in management means your salesperson needs to ensure that they get a proper introduction and the opportunity for the new executive to get to know your organization. Also, your customer may be expanding product lines, building new offices, opening new plants, merging with other companies or purchasing subsidiaries. Bottom line: be sure your salespeople continually seek out new sales opportunities with existing customers.
   
   
2. Testimonial – Prospects love testimonials to help in their decision making process. Whether in a letter or simply a quote for your website or collateral materials, this is a powerful way for your salespeople to add credibility to the sales process. Get your salespeople to develop their “Top 10” list of premiere accounts and set up meetings with each one in the next 30 days (if possible) and have each of them ask for a testimonial. After acquiring them, make electronic copies and share them across your sales team. Make a contest out of it who can get the most legitimate testimonials in this month or quarter.
   
   
3. Reference – Ask the customer if they would be willing to be contacted by a prospect to validate your salesperson’s service offerings or simply communicate their experience working with your company. You’ll need to do this if a prospect asks for references, so be prepared. However, don’t hassle your existing clients with unnecessary calls or too many calls. Offer references only if the prospects is tightly qualified. Be sure to contact the reference to let them know that the prospect will be calling.
   
   
4. Referral – This is one of the most overlooked prospecting methods. Your best list is your own list. Ask your “satisfied” customers for the names of people they know who could use your products or services. Senior executives know other senior executives. Middle managers know other middle managers. Use good customers as a referral source and leverage those relationships.
   
   Offer to send the referral a free sample, free consultation or information that would be of value to them. Ask if you can use your customer’s name. Gather as much information about the referral as you can because you’ll still need to qualify them. Sometimes a customer will give you a name because they want to help, but the referral is not qualified.

Taking clients out to lunch can be a very productive form of new business development. As a Sales Manager, coach your salespeople on effective strategies to accomplish specific sales objectives. These four points should get you started.

About the Author
Barrett Riddleberger is an internationally recognized leader in the practice of sales assessment, sales training, sales recruitment and sales consulting. His book, “Blueprint of a Sales Champion,” details how organizations can find, train and retain top performing salespeople… even in a highly competitive market. An accomplished author and sales consultant, Riddleberger is also highly in demand as a business development and motivational speaker for organizations seeking to drive their sales force to greater levels of performance. For more info go to www.ResolutionSystemsInc.com or www.BlueprintOfASalesChampion.com or call 336.665.0506.