Who was Frank Sinatra? Rhetorical, I know – but what you probably didn’t know is that there’s a principle related to one of his songs. This principle is the foundation of a simple sales hack that will help you close more deals. Don’t believe me? Let me surprise you.
You’ve probably heard “New york, New York” hundreds of times. Two lines stand out:
If I can make it there,
I’ll make it anywhere
And they’re essential to the method I want to describe. To better visualise the concept, I thought of an anecdote.
How do you move tons of gold?
Imagine Bank of England would want to move gold from point A, to a safer point B. They need transport – so they ask Big Logistics, Armored Transport and 15 similar companies, to tell them why BoE should pick their company. Complicated negotiations to say the least.
What kind of arguments would be used in these negotiations?
Armored Transport could say “The armour on our trucks is 5″ thick, we hire only elite ex-special forces operatives and we are fully insured in case something goes wrong”
But Big Logistics rolls out a Sinatra Test argument:
“We’ve been moving gold for FED in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. Never lost a cargo.”
Been there, done that. At this point you know who wins this contract.
Why does it help get more leads?
You delivered on time. What others couldn’t do, you made possible. You helped your client be successful. You have experience. You get shit done.
All of those messages are hidden in epic examples of how you took care of your clients, regardless of any obstacles in the way.
It all really comes down to this – when you do a great job (especially in extreme situations), each project you finish becomes an argument that you can use in negotiations and to market your company. Most markets are crowded and more competitive than ever. The image of a company that always gets the job done is invaluable.
Your success stories help build that image.
So how do you find your own Sinatra test argument?
1. Have you achieved any tough goals?
SLA: “You need an SLA? With client X, we have a 99.9% SLA on an e-commerce web shop which has 1 mln unique users monthly”.
Software development: “We’ve launched products in 100 days.”
Conversion rate optimisation: “We’ve doubled our clients’ conversion rates”
2. What outcome are you most proud of? How can it be measured?
Algorithm optimisation: “We’ve been able to speed algorithm performance up by 3.000%”
User experience: “We’ve doubled user adoption rates”
Performance Marketing: “We did campaigns with ROI of 886%”
3. What business result are you proud of?
Similar to #2, but with business results as in costs cut or new revenue generated. These are tough to get – clients usually don’t want to share how much money you helped make.
Multichanell commerce: “This project has generated 50m EUR in the first 12 months”
Performance Marketing: “For every dollar spent, our client made 9.43$ in revenue”
4. Is there a segment of clients you’ve been working a lot with?
Travel e-commerce: “We are working with Booking.com, Jovago.com and several other VC-backed players in 9 countries.”
5. What kind of projects do you do better than anyone else?
Creative agency: “We’ve been awarded for our logo’s 73 times in the last 10 years”
“That’s life”
And it’s not surprising – if you handle tough projects well, then you close new deals more easily. Reliability sells. And you get more leads from referrals too.
All I can say is, be more welcoming when challenging projects come about. It’s worth it, even if they seem unprofitable at first. They can become great success stories, and those are priceless.
