Smart Sales Strategies for Niche Markets
Selling to Gay and Lesbian Organizations
The problem with selling to gay and lesbian organizations is that misguided efforts can threaten your entire business model. Don't forget that gay and lesbian organizations aren't easy sales marks -- here's what you'll need to convert prospects into customers.
Technology and technique are important. But in a B2B sales environment, they may be less important than other critical resources.
For small businesses that sell to these companies, the industry's positive growth outlook makes the solid execution of fundamental sales principles more important than ever.
Networking Tips
The gay and lesbian organization industry is relationship-based. Businesses that sell in the industry rely on industry contacts for leads and other aspects of the sales cycle.
Lead lists are helpful in expanding your network, but only to the extent that your team invests time and effort to develop lead list contacts into long-term business relationships. As an owner or manager, you need to encourage networking strategies and proactively model relational sales techniques.
Benefits of Networking
Networking expands your reach within the industry. In addition to raising your company's profile, it increases your credibility with gay and lesbian organizations.
But more importantly, a strategy that emphasizes networking can be a lead generation machine. Sometimes the leads you generate through solid networking will be leads that you had never considered before.
How to Find Gay & Lesbian Organization Leads
Leads are the foundation of successful selling. The first step in lead generation is to analyze the local market. From there, you can broaden your net to include the yellow pages, Internet searches and trade listings.
The names of gay and lesbian organizations you obtain through your own efforts need to be qualified through phone calls, emails, and face-to-face conversations.
But the most dependable source of qualified sales leads is often a third-party lead list provider. For consistently high quality lead lists, we recommend Experian Business Services to our business partners. Experian has a reputation for providing accurate and filtered lead lists that can be used for direct mail and other marketing efforts directed toward gay and lesbian organizations.
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