Huh? What? Friday again? Alright here are the events then, Jeez!:

Hey! Andres here,

Welcome to the networking desk! Every week, you me, and another (almost) 1000 people join together to schedule events and continue to grow our businesses together.

Always glad to see you here!

🌟 Don’t forget to share your networking wins (or business wins and tips) to be featured next time!

Here’s what we got this week:

• Helping ≠ Selling - I share a sales story that happened this week

• Local events to do more selling

Alright, let’s do this.

“Lean forward moment” of the week - 🛟Helping ≠ Selling

I want to start off this week with a story… A story that changed how I think about sales.

As I focus my offer more and more to non-profits, I want to avoid doing much work for businesses, not because what I do is not valuable to them, but because I know I can create a bigger impact by going deep in one space.

Earlier last week, I received a client referral call from a business owner. They wanted to start an e‑commerce brand. I asked if they were selling somewhere else, and if they had any traffic, to which they said no.

I know that just building a website will not automatically create leads or buyers on the store, so I explained all I knew and recommended the best steps. Start on a platform with users, like Etsy, then build your brand reputation, then start growing a website where you can send your traffic to.

Basically create a following first, and test your product.

They really appreciated the gesture, but were unsure where to start with the product, so I did some research and shared what they could use.

a couple of days later they called me again and scheduled a call with me because they wanted to start with at least a basic site and get my help identifying and creating an account on a separate platform for them.

While I focus on nonprofits, I’ll take aligned referrals.

However, there is something I learned from this interaction… 1. Yes I am a softie and can’t say no to a referral because I really appreciate the referrer lol BUT 2. selling is more of a disqualification process.

Before you pitch, you should ask yourself “Do they have the problem I solve?” and ask questions similar to:

• Do you currently have over 5 employees?

• And how many leads are you currently getting per month? Where are they coming from?

If they have a mismatch like for example your offer only works if they have 5+ employees then you say “Ideally we work with companies with over 5 employees because…”

You explain the reason and this shows that you are not looking to sell anything, you are actually caring for their situation.

If what you do does not match at all what you offer, you refer or down-sell.

Not everyone is a match for your core offer, example. I can not guarantee an increase of over 20 percent in monthly recurring donations if a non-profit has no email list, and $0 in recurring donors.

Can I still help? Yes, but I would have to see if it makes sense financially for them.

The main idea that I am trying to share is that honest sales happen when there is an ROI, when it makes sense for the person doing it that you are the right person to do it.

I like to share what I do with honesty, if I show that hey you are not the right fit but after all that they insist then I can offer something more specific to their situation but making false promises does not go anywhere.

Have you guys had any similar situations?

What questions do you use to qualify, or disqualify?

Looking forward to hearing from you in the replies…

💻 Shameless plug - Non-Profit Recurring Donations

Hey! In case you didn’t know, I make websites to help non-profits to stay top of mind to create more revenue.

OR JUST RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL!

🗓️ Now, the events…

Community Member Highlights - 18 members!

Sharing community wins!

I wanted to highlight our PowerCore Team this week. We are a group of business owners that meet every week on Wednesday mornings (7am, which I know, it’s crazy)

We provide a ton of value for each other and create referrals.

For the longest time we were stuck at 10 or fewer members, but we have recently grown a lot!

How was today’s newsletter?

Feedback helps us improve :)

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Thank you for reading! Quick thing before I go:

1. If you are new or would like to read older posts, check out this page. There is a backlog of previous weeks of “The Networking Desk”

2. Know someone who would benefit from this newsletter? Be sure to share it with them! 📩 (just copy the link or forward this email) I will keep putting out great newsletters for them and for you. That’s a promise.

See you next week.

- Andres Inciarte