I just had the experience of watching a friend go through a painful loss.
A friend of mine was running for Judge here in my county, and not only did he lose on Tuesday – he got creamed.
The race wasn’t even frickin close – he lost 42% to 57%.
Ouch.
I won’t bore you with arcane political details.
I will share with you the big lesson I saw in this.
Big Lesson: Superior Sales Strategy Wins
The guy who won did one Big Thing right.
While my friend was focusing on newspaper ads, direct mail postcards, and automated phone calls to reach the voters in our county, his opponent found a better way to reach people.
His opponent became a Parasite.
He became a Parasite on the congressional candidate’s campaign in our district.
In direct marketing this is called the Host-Parasite Strategy.
The idea is that when you are small player, you leverage the marketing reach and resources of a bigger player.
And the guy who won did exactly that. He was at all of the congressional campaign rallies, getting introduced, speaking briefly, and getting his name out to passionate people who were definitely going to vote.
This is the same strategy as when you open your credit card bill and have an offer in there for Lenox china, or some other inexpensive impulse item.
Ever see those things in with your bill?
They are riding as a Parasite on the bigger credit card company’s Host relationship with thousands of customers like you.
In business to business selling, I’ve seen this strategy used effectively many times.
Business software provider SAP fueled their growth to become the 4th largest software company in the world using the Host-Parasite Strategy.
SAP cozied up to accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP, who before the Enron debacle had CFO & CEO level relationships with some of the biggest corporations in the world.
Andersen recommended the implementation of SAP software at these major companies, taking SAP from an unknown German software maker, to now the 4th largest in the world.
And just so you understand, Andersen as the Host got something out of this too. SAP’s software is very complex to implement, and it required an army of programmers to install. An army that Andersen’s consulting group was oh so happy to provide at a very large profit for Andersen.
So there are numerous ways to attack a sale, to reach more customers, to gain market share in sales.
With every sale you take, look for new ways to approach and attack.
If you always stick with simple, straight-forward, direct frontal assault sales strategy, you eventually are your going to get your head handed to you by a smarter competitor who finds a better way.
Sales strategy can make or break your sale, your year, even your career. In the Persuasive Selling Skills Audio Program, I further discuss the 4 classes of sales strategy, and how to use them to beat your competition. Go get your copy to learn more.
