better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

Coffee Cup Selling

11 February 2018

As it happens I don’t drink coffee, as green tea is my preferred hot beverage. However, you’re welcome to have a grande latte machiato choco frotho servo in a glass cuppo special.

Ok, that’s probably not a real drink, but as a non-coffee person I really find all the coffee-combos bewildering. The last time I drank coffee the choice was white or black, and black was considered rather racy when I first had that 45 years ago.

However, now that we have a coffee culture we can tap into it to help our sales activity.

Networking is generally held to be one of the best ways of finding new clients, as we get to develop relationships and thus help people to make emotional decisions to buy with us.

Most people I’ve talked to find networking a real chore, or intimidating, or just plain scary. That’s because they view ‘networking’ as entailing a greasy breakfast in a room full of tired business owners at some ungodly hour of the morning.

Being honest, sometimes networking can be like that. Business life can be hard work and isn’t one long party.

The whole truth is that networking can be many things and it’s up to us to find our own way of doing things.

Having ticked off the early morning style I’ve found that my preferred modus operandi is to meet people for coffee and to make friends.

Too many colleagues have been too quick to sell and they forget that in business ‘easy in can mean easy out’ whereas long lasting relationships take time to build.

Therefore, I like to sell by means of regular, low intensity, friendly coffee cup catch-ups. I take the view that friends do good business with friends and that I’m never quite sure what outcomes will follow. So, I’m happy to meet people and chat and build relationships and see where life takes us.

My experience is that if I start 10 conversations then 1 good thing will emerge. I’m never sure when, or how, it will emerge, but the world is a generous place and good things follow from kindness and perserverance.

And coffee!

So this week we can all flip open our diaries and book up a coffee catch-up meeting with someone who we’d like to do business with.

And we can have cake too!

Next week: Bitcoin Bananas