A crash course in closing more deals
While building real relationships and never being “salesy”!
Today's Highlights:
The Goal: Become a driving force for a customer-centric approach, where success is defined by meaningful relationships, not just numbers.
Embracing a strategic sales mindset can empower you to turn potential clients into authentic connections.
Today, I’m going to share the three key audience types and explore how you can apply this knowledge to grow your connections and close more deals.
A Crash Course in Closing More Deals
Get excited.
Today we’re talking about a powerful topic:
Building a sales mindset that constantly produces relationships and executed sales.
I learned about the concept from the book Authority Marketing by Adam Witty and Rusty Shelton.
In it, Witty and Shelton explain the 3 key audiences your content and relationships should reach:
Your Target Audience
Your Attention Audience
Your Client Audience
It’s such an exciting way to view your network because —at its core—it’s about building real relationships, not being “salesly”.
Today, I will explain how this works so you can use this concept to build a better network, become a master marketer, and eventually close more deals.
Defining Key Terms*
First, let’s make sure we’re on the same page by defining what each of these audiences really means.
Target audience- This is everyone who could be interested in what you have to say: your content, your marketing materials, your elevator pitch. These people do not know about you yet. But they should. So, your least intimate relationships live here.
Example: Writing a LinkedIn post directed at Good Contractors who want to build a strategic business plan. (Any Good Contractor who cares about strategy is your target audience)
Attention audience- This is everyone who is actually paying attention to you—whether through your content, networking presence, or company marketing. They know your name or your company logo. Something you’ve done has caught their interest (hopefully for the right reasons).
Example: Having a newsletter that people subscribe to that explains further in depth how to use strategy to build their construction business. (All the people who sign up are now in your attention audience)
Client audience- This is everyone who has actually purchased your goods/services—making them a client. It’s important to keep these people happy by delivering more value than you promised + offering them something else exciting and new that provides EVEN MORE value.
Example- Giving people who purchase your online leadership course a chance to buy 1-1 coaching exclusively not available to anyone else.
*By the way, these definitions are informed by the book, but they are based on my own understanding of the concepts. My goal in doing this instead of quoting the book is to add value to the concepts rather than simply repeat them. `
The Secret
Most salespeople try to make EVERYONE a client.
This almost always feels awkward.
Why?
Because I just heard of you (target audience), so I’m not ready to buy from you (client audience)!
Instead of trying to move EVERYONE to your client audience, you should constantly be moving people (naturally) from Target → Attention → Client.
Eventually, you should have a continuous funnel of relationships:
People just hearing of you (target)
People becoming friends with you (attention)
People becoming a loyal client (client)
It takes all the pressure away from networking and business development and makes every conversation feel like a success!
And how do you do it?
Consistent effort.
That’s it. Just constantly networking, meeting people, staying in touch, and building real relationships. Eventually, each bucket will fill up with great people walking down the path with you you. People that are ready to buy will naturally move to your client audience without you ever being “salesly.”
With every bucket full, you never have to feel pressed to make sales. You just have to feel pressed to be genuine, keep putting in the effort, and make real friends. The rest takes care of itself.
I’m telling you, you can do it tomorrow.
Time Allocation
For those of you that are full-time salespeople, you should be working on your audiences all the time.
For those of you (like me) who are “doer-sellers”—meaning you have basic job responsibilities PLUS selling responsibilities—then you’ll want to allocate your time appropriately.
I generally allocate 5 hours per week to business development and sales, broken down into each bucket as follows:
1 hr content creation (target audience)
1 hr newsletter writing (attention audience)
1 hr LinkedIn DM messaging (attention audience)
2 hrs doing calls or meetings (attention audience + client audience)
I find it’s a really good mix and helps keep each audience bucket full.
Spark Notes:
There’s no real secret to being good at sales.
You just need to build real relationships and allow people to walk their own way down into your client audience.
It’s easy to do, plus it just makes work a lot more enjoyable.
People do business with people they like. Period.
To do the same, follow the networking funnel described here:
Target Audience
Attention Audience
Client Audience
