MEMBERSHIP SELLING AND
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I Don't Do Outbound Sales Calls. How Can Holman Brothers Help Me?

Doug Holman on the question: I Don't Do Outbound Sales. How Can Holman Brothers Help Me?

DOUG: This is just came up just in the last couple of weeks, right after Holman Brothers did a breakout session for ACCE's Innovation Summit.

A question that was asked by several of the participants was, what about me? I don't really make outbound calls. My job for my chamber is to field the incoming calls, walk-ins, web inquiries, and  then make sure that I maintain our revenue base. And I thought to myself, you know, we haven't necessarily addressed that. And that's maybe a failing on our behalf. So, I would like to take a moment to address that specific job description and that specific question of "why would Holman Brothers be a service to me?" 

The reality of it is that, yes, we spend an awful lot of time trying to help not just our clients, but the chamber industry understand the best ways to make calls out so that you can control the revenue that you drive and also your income. But for those of you who don't make outbound calls, much of what Holman Brothers speaks to is the idea of letting the prospect, even though they found you, letting the prospect talk themselves into joining.

Let me explain it. So what do I mean by talk themselves into joining? Businesses and individuals, for the most part, don't join the chamber because it's the right thing to do. They don't join the chamber because somebody thinks it might be nice. They're literally coming to you because something is wrong. I don't have enough customers. I need more people to know who I am. My company doesn't have the credibility that it once had or maybe there's an issue that they are really frustrated with that might be as simple as, "Gosh, if I could just get rid of that meter in front of my business, more people would stop and walk into my business."

So, all of those things could be a motivator for somebody to reach out to the chamber. So the question then becomes, how do you in a concentrated way or in a strategic manner, get them to say how frustrated they are? To get that prospect to recognize that their life will be better if they join the chamber because the chamber is going to provide the answers and the solutions that they need.

So that's what Holman Brothers has been driven by, not just for the five plus years that we've that we've had our company, but for the entire time that Bill and I have been in the chamber industry. We've spoken at conferences and we're really trying to lead membership professionals to understand that you must ask great questions and your questions must lead to the solution of your prospect's problems. If you do that, when you do that, you'll actually close more of those people that find you. So I hope that helps.