Common Interests Lead to Sales

What is your opening question when you meet someone for the first time at a business networking event? Is it:

What do you do for a living?
What do you like to do when you are not working?

Question two gets big smiles and bright eyes! Question one gets short answers.

Going From Liked to Trusted

Focusing on the other person and learning their interests and hobbies is the basis for being liked. Once they like you, it becomes easy to gain their trust. Before long, you’ll also know what they do for a living.

Finding common interests is step two. When you talk about common topics such as hobbies, family, and where you grew up, you learn about the other person’s values and priorities. Engaging in common interests becomes easy.

When you find common interests with a qualified prospect, you move up their ladder and give yourself several touch points for follow-up. The ice is broken, and your conversations are 75% social and 25% business.

You Win When…

When your conversations with your qualified prospects are more social than business, you are likely to convert that prospect to a sale. When you do talk business, focus on items that build buyer confidence:

Impacts on current pain points.
Money-back guarantees and clear return and refund policies.
Product demonstrations and testimonials.
Consistent, value-added content sent at strategic points in the sales cycle.
Don’t be a pest. Ask your prospect to tell you when to touch base next.

The key is to reduce buyer risk by adding value.

You Won’t Get There Unless…

When you are the buyer, it is very hard to differentiate vendors. In today’s competitive environment, most of us buy because of a relationship. That relationship is based on common interests. So, what do I do once I’ve established common interests?

Personalize Your Prospect’s Favorite Things

Whether it’s bowling or opera, it does not matter. As long as you and your qualified prospect share it in common. Capture that info in your CRM so you can:

Personalize the messaging to include topics of interest.
Invite the prospect to an event relating to common interests.
Introduce others with similar interests.
Automate 50% of your touch points so you are free to meet 1-on-1 with your most qualified prospects.

Since it often takes up to 12 touches to close a sale, using your common interests as part of your touch points is very powerful.

Some Great Books I’ve Read

Perhaps, you and I can connect on books, music, sports, and hobbies. Here are a few great books I’ve read. Please let me know if you’ve read them and what you think.

The Great Alone – Kristen Hannah.
The Women of Chateau Lafayette – Stephanie Dray.
The Lost Wife – Alyson Richman.

Suggest books you like if you haven’t read these. My purpose is to share 3 great books and to illustrate how easy it is to find common interests.

Want to Talk Books, Music, Sports, or Other?

I’d Love to Meet!

When you stack magnets, their power is exponential.

Stacking Magnets

Think about your best clients and what actions they took when first buying from you. Build magnets based on these actions. Here are examples of how to stack magnets:

Fractional CFO Service Company

TOFU – Cash-Flow Forecast Template for Founders.
MOFU – 3-part email class on “Scaling from 500K to 5M using videos.
BOFU – Free 30-minute “Financial Check” with a 90-day pilot option.

. Residential HVAC / Plumbing Contractor

TOFU – Seasonal Maintenance Checklist to Avoid Breakdowns
MOFU – Educational videos on “What To Check Before Calling For Help.
BOFU – Free home system inspection plus a discount on annual plans.

Specialty Retailer or E-Commerce Shop

TOFU – “Find Your Perfect Product Style” quiz with personalized recommendations and a small first-order discount.
MOFU – How-To Guides, Lookbooks, and Comparisons

BOFU – Limited-time starter kit, cart-abandonment coupons, and free shipping.

This “magnet stack” approach—clear value at each stage, linked to your core offer—will pull the right prospects from curiosity to commitment.

Getting it Done

Apex Advisory Group, a professional services firm, had four sales reps plus the owner selling and servicing clients, but deals were inconsistent and follow-up was ad-hoc.

Apex engaged CCC, www.cccsolutions.com, to help build their sustainable sales pipeline. The team focused on the ideal client’s journey, selected magnets, and created a sales process to manage prospects. The magnets were:

TOFU – Risk and Readiness Checklist.

MOFU – Quarterly Webinars and Case Studies

BOFU – Business Circle Invitation

CCC set up X2CRM to segment, track, and reach prospects and remind salespeople to follow up. At every stage, the CRM captured new information and responded based on specific prospect actions.

Apex Today

Apex now has a repeatable sales engine: Their magnets consistently attract new prospects, X2CRM nurtures and scores them, and the sales team focuses its energy on the best opportunities.

With CCC Solutions guiding strategy and configuration, Apex built a sustainable, measurable pipeline that increased sales while reducing the chaos of manual follow-up.

FREE ebook:
Build More Revenue with Less Follow Up Fatigue

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