So I set a personal goal for myself if I’m in the office and not out on appointments to hit about 100 new people every single day. Most of those people I’m reaching out to through email by using LinkedIn and those tools that I mentioned to find those people. And then I try to focus on landing about 10 face to face meetings a week in the Austin area. And hopefully from one leading to the other there 2, roughly 2 new deals that close every week as a result of those efforts. It takes a lot of time to hit 100 people a day, and so that’s why I’ll come in early just to get going faster.
Clip: Allen Schlesinger is the NBA’s Poster Child for Social Selling
LinkedIn allows me to really narrow down who I’m looking for, and then there’s some tools that help you find people’s contact information that I’ll utilize with LinkedIn. Whether it be a tool called Hunter or a tool called Prospect Works that really help you. They basically find people’s contact information. They scour Google for you. So I’ve really kind of embraced it and the NBA seems like they’ve used me as their poster child pretty much for social selling. Where now I’ve talked to probably a third of the teams in the actual NBA as well as all the teams in the development league. I’ve gone to Charlotte to present at the American Hockey League meetings and then I presented two times now at the NBA D-League meetings. One in Chicago and one in Indianapolis. It’s been fun teaching about this and I think it seems like more teams now are investing their financial resources and time into learning more on how to utilize social selling
Clip: Allen Schlesinger on Social Selling: “I haven’t made a cold call in 5 years.”
They refer to me as the LinkedIn Guy in our office. I don’t make any cold calls at all. I haven’t made a cold call in over 5 years. In our industry that’s been kind of a no-no. It’s still somewhat smile and dial, but I think it’s slowly changing. Social selling has allowed me to get in doors that I would have never got to before. I’ve sold tickets to two of the six billionaires in Austin. Those people would not have taken my phone calls, or their executive assistants would have blocked me from getting into those doors. It opens up an entirely different world that you’ll never get into by phone call.
Clip: Allen Schlesinger – Sales Differentiators: Persistence, Hard Work and Building Relationships
There’s a few things that have really helped me set myself apart. One is persistence. I probably don’t know what the word ‘no’ means. I’ll follow-up on numerous occasions. I utilize texting quite a bit to touch base with people. Then the other thing is working harder than everybody else. I’m in the office every morning at 7:30 with my coffee. Starting my day that way just to get ahead of everybody else and have that hour to myself where I’m just focused. The last thing is really building relationships. I really try to build friendships with all my clients where I’m not just hanging out with them at our games. I’m also hanging out with them socially. Whether it’s my wife and I or them and their wife. Stuff like that.
Episode 21: Social Selling his way to the top of the NBA Development League – Allen Schlesinger of the Austin Spurs
Allen Schlesinger — Social Selling
You don’t need cold calls if you sell on social.
Allen Schlesinger is the Premium Sales Manager for the Austin Spurs. He has been the #1 seller in all of the NBA Development League (NBA G League) for the last four years consecutively. Allen started off with no experience in sales, and has risen to become one of the top sellers in his industry — and he hasn’t made a cold call in five years! Allen uses social selling on Continue Reading …