Find Your Centres of Influence

Now that we’ve finished editing the book I’ll keep giving snippets to help you in your business. This one’s from Chapter 10: Sales Relationships and helps you identify and cultivate your centres of influence.

I first heard the phrase centres of influence from my accountant, David Groat at ZM Partners. He told me how he and his business partner Maurizio identified this early on in their business. They lost business when quite a few of their larger clients started leaving, seemingly for no reason. They analysed what all these businesses had in common to see what the reason might be. It turned out that one client – a relatively low-key one who didn’t spend much with them – had left first. That client had introduced all the others to the business in the first place. Through this departure, they discovered she was a powerful centre of influence. They sat down to identify other centres of influence in their business and made sure that they were looked after well.

David encouraged me very early on to identify, nurture, and cultivate centres of influence. As a result, I analysed where the recurring income had come from over the lifecycle of my previous business in the events market.

In traditional marketing terms, this is your marketing maven: the person who likes to be ahead of the pack. As we saw in chapter 6 when we looked at clearance sales, these people are connectors. Much of their social currency lies in connecting people they might want to impress or a group they want to belong to. They truly enjoy feeling connected, might not be our biggest spenders, and are fiercely loyal. Pay good attention to all your clients, but be especially on the lookout for red-flag moments with your centres of influence. Keep in contact with them and keep them happy.

Centres of influence show how important it is to be aware of where your work is coming from and to have systems in place to track that work. One way to do this is to source your leads, which simply means to ask every new client how they found out about you. Apart from having this on your enquiry form on your website, get into the habit of asking people in your meetings and have your team ask new clients too.

Once you know who your centres of influence are, strongly consider adding them to your A-list of clients. Treat your centres of influence well and make it easy for them to recommend you.

Oh, and if you’re in Australia and looking for an excellent accountant visit http://www.zmp.com.au/

To your sales success
Michael Neaylon
michael@mcme.com.au

Author of the forthcoming book, 'True Brand Toolkit: How to Bring in Big Money for Your Small Business.'