Released 19 October 2016 Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher
Chris Norton is a director of Mentor Group, a company that specialises in sales transformation for large organisations. He’s the author of “The DNA of Success” and co-author of “Bareknuckle Customer Service”. And one of the interesting things about Chris is that he’s a master of what he calls the one-hour close.
Connect with Chris
Featured Show Highlights
With Chris’ background in sales, he always had seen the process of building strong relationships with suppliers and other organizations. This led Chris on a path to NLP and self-development.
Creating these relationships or a lasting impact with your clients is essential. Chris gives an example to follow up with your clients, every person, every program they do. Chris says following them through this process ensures success and application of the newly learned information.
Chris talks about a process called the “one-hour close”. This refers to getting the discovery, the sale, the solution plan, and close all in one meeting. By reducing the sales cycle. it does not only benefit one party but both by saving time and getting to the root of the problem.
With the amount of advertisers trying to get the attention out there, Chris says the best and most authentic, productive way to get business is through reference.
Using testimonials versus meetings or phone calls, which everyone else is already doing “a hundred times that day”, is a more personal touch to offering your services or showing your worth and creating relationship.
Another piece of advice Chris gives, as part of his process, is to identify a person within the company that has large stakes with the sales team but is outside of the problem. By this, he is referring to someone that can act as an ally or a more qualifying voice to the sales team.
Doing your research and being prepared, going in to the meeting with the knowledge of trends or using information from past clients is your pathway to a right of opinion. Chris is able to do this process so quickly because he is direct and comes prepared.
Quotes
“A change of orientation, a change of the way of looking at things, that’s what really sparked my interest.”
“We are going to have some form of key foundations within. Whether it is a one-day, one-hour or one-week event, to follow that up with short regular interventions beyond that to support the people to bring it to life.”
“What we’ve worked on within our company is to reduce the sales cycle and not only just the benefit of our business but I think for the benefit of human kind, because a lot of people become bordering on pests.”
“If you are referenced in, even if it is a soft introduction, you become massively more relevant from the first minute that you meet someone.”
“Having that human connection or human bridge to trust is really really important.”
“You have to have done your work, you have to be able to differentiate yourself with an opinion, and with that value that is where that one hour comes in.”