How to Become a Rainmaker — Book Highlights

This is a highlight reel for what makes up a Rainmaker: someone who can close deals and make it rain.

By all means, do give the book a proper read for the finer details.

Source: Pexels

The Rainmaker’s Credo

• Cherish customers at all times
• Treat customers as you would your best friend
• Listen to customers and decipher their needs
• Make (or give) customers what they need
• Price your product to its dollarized value
• Show customers the dollarized value of what they will get
• Teach customers to want what they need
• Make your product the way customers want it
• Get your product to your customers when they want it
• Giver you customers a little extra, more than they expect
• Remind customers of the dollarized value they received
• Thank each customer sincerely and often
• Help customers pay you, so they won’t be embarrassed and go elsewhere
• Ask to do it again

The Rainmaker Formula

1. Always answer the question “Why should this customer do business with us?”
2. Obey marketing’s first commandment: treat each customer as you would treat yourself
3. Customers don’t care about you
4. Always pre-call plan every sales call
5. Fish where the big fish are
6. Show them the money
7. Earthquakes don’t count
8. Rainmakers make appointments to make it rain
9. Stand out, send a letter
10. Always take the best seat in the restaurant and have your back sat against the wall to avoid a distracting background
11. Don’t drink coffee on a sales call
12. You’re not at lunch to eat lunch
13. Never wear a pen in your shirt pocket
14. If the solution benefits them, they will buy
15. Rainmakers turn customer objections into customer objectives
16. Midway through one project with a customer, the Rainmaker proposes another way in which the Rainmaker’s company can help the customer
17. Treat everybody you meet as a potential customer
18. The biggest buy signal is the sales call appointment
19. “Yes, that is a good company. Would you like to know our points of difference?”
20. Always return every call every day
21. Rainmakers don’t plan a thirty-mile trip with twenty miles worth of gas
22. Beware the myth of time and territory management
23. Rainmakers always test in private what they are going to sell in public
24. Dare to be dumb
25. Always do an investment return analysis
26. Rainmakers make friends, not enemies
27. Always be on “high receive”
28. The Rainmaker must understand all of the customer’s concerns, desires, fears, and limits
29. If you don’t care about the answer then don’t ask the question
30. Never be in a meeting, be with the customer when they need you
31. The Rainmaker presents and helps the customer to decide
32. Do a wonderful job, do it on time, do it on budget, don’t complain, and give the customer a little extra
33. “If the demo is successful, is there anything else prohibiting you from going ahead?”
34. Give and get
35. Sell before 8 in the morning or on Friday afternoons
36. Break the ice at the end of the sales call
37. Get a combination of 4 points everyday: 1 for each lead or referral, 2 for each appointment with a decision maker, 3 for each decision maker you meet face to face, or 4 for each sale you close
38. A shot on goal is never a bad play
39. Don’t make cold calls
40. Sell the link and you sell the chain
41. Don’t talk with food in your mouth
42. “Why don’t you give it a try?”
43. Voice mail is a good selling tool
44. Rainmakers show up fit and ready
45. Be the best-dressed person you will meet today
46. Breakfast meetings make it rain
47. Use business cards
48. “What question should I be asking that I am not asking?”

10 Things to do Today to Get Business

1. Send a handwritten note
2. Clip and send an article of interest
3. Talk to a satisfied customer and ask who else you might help
4. Send a thank-you gift to someone who referred you
5. Give your business card to someone with influence
6. Send a letter to the editor of a magazine your customers read
7. Add fifteen people to your mailing list
8. Leave a compelling voice mail
9. Make an appointment
10. Call a customer you haven’t talked to in two years

How to Recognise a Rainmaker

• Is organised
• Calls only on decision makers
• Does detailed pre-call planning
• Always has a written sales call objective
• Asks pre-planned questions
• Listens
• Is empathetic with customers
• Encourages and appreciates objections
• Always dollarizes the value of the product
• Asks for customer commitments