Download the_sales_cycle_part_ii_sorting_and_organizing_leads.pdf
“The Fish in the Sea” – A Short Story by the Business Development Blog
Once upon a time there lived a fisherman by the sea. Every day he left his small rundown shack rowed halfway across the bay in his leaky rowboat to the deepest spot he dared go. In the wooden sieve that he called an ocean going vessel and he baited his hook with mackerel, dropped a spindle of fishing line over the side of the boat and secured it to the boat by looping it around a notch he had cut in the side of one of the planks, while wrapping the slack he had (all 50 feet of it) between his elbow and shoulder. 4 hours later he had caught 3 cod weighing 5 lbs each; 1 of which was meant to feed himself and the other 2 to be sold at the market to pay for his meager rent with a few cents left over for a couple of extra feet of fishing line.
One day, the fisherman went out in his rowboat, baited and dropped his line and bailed water to keep his boat floating, when all of the sudden a school of cod rushed beneath his tiny craft and nearly sank it. Several of the cod attacked his hook below ripping the line from his hand and taking his hook and his entire fishing operation with it. Saddened by the loss of his livelihood, yet elated to find such a huge, unknown school of cod, the fisherman rowed as quickly as he could to the dock. When he got to the dock he leapt from his waterlogged boat, ran down the dock, and headed directly to his friend, a banker named Mervin Fishman. To his friend he stammered, “Mervin, I need to borrow money for a boat and a net, please you have to help me!”
“Calm down fisherman,” the banker explained, “I’ll run your FICO score and determine whether I can lend you the money. Just fill out these papers and I’ll have your answer in 10 business days.” The fisherman filled out the forms and left his friend, returning to his small shack to wait for his decision. After agonizingly pacing back and forth for nearly 2 weeks until a rut appeared in the dirt floor of his shack, one day the banker appeared at the door. “Hello my friend,” he greeted, “I have your decision.” The fisherman beamed with anticipation. “I will let you borrow the money to purchase the boat and nets you need, but you must pay me back within thirty days, or I will be forced to charge you interest,” the banker explained.
“That is terrific!” the fisherman exclaimed. No sooner had the banker given the fisherman his loan than he had already purchased a bigger net and a better boat. Sailing toward the same location he found the large school of cod before, the fisherman dropped his nets into the water and to his great satisfaction the nets were instantly filled with dozens of the cod. Upon returning to land, he sold the catch and repeated the process every day until the entire loan was paid off.
Today the fisherman lives in a 5,000 square foot condominium with marble floors and polished granite countertops. Along with his good friend Mervin he invested in a fleet of boats and nearly fished the entire species of cod extinct while starting the Fisherman & Fishman Fish Company. Today they hold the contract for nearly 90% of the imports of seafood to Japan.
What can we learn from this story?
When trying to catch fish, or make sales you need to have the right tools, or you are going to starve. Keeping tabs on the status and history of the leads you contact in your head is a lot like fishing with a spindle of line and a leaky rowboat; you are going to be woefully disappointed with the results of your efforts. Managing your leads on paper is another possible way that you can sort out and record where you have been, who you’ve talked to and what they said, but again, when dealing with a large number of leads you are going to be hamstrung by the overwhelming amount of sorting and sifting through every single page until you find the right one. What we suggest at the Business Development Report is to arm yourself with a computer, and beyond that some decent contact management software like Microsoft Outlook, ACT!, or any of the other CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software available. Think of this as an investment in your ability to capture more revenue, and an invaluable asset for any future endeavor you may have as a photographer. The analogy above is an oversimplification of the process, (albeit entertaining) but if you are trying to eat more than just scraps you are going to have to be prepared for high volume.
To learn how to do this, we’ve created a simple, step-by-step guide to using MS Outlook to manage your leads. To view it you’ve got to download the attached PDF and have MS Outlook. Enjoy!
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