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How Much Work Do You Think It Takes To Make A Book Cover?

Would you believe the answer is six hours?!

Would you believe that six hours can be condensed into two minutes?

For some reason, I love time lapse photography, I don’t know why, but something about seeing a process often overlooked is fascinating to me.

But this video sparked a thought: How much background work is done in sales? Paul Castain on his blog, Sales Playbook, wrote two exhaustive posts on pre-call planning(part one and part two) and he suggested something interesting: print off and bring with you all your research, to show clients what it looked like.

The environmentally responsible side of me shuddered, but it is a valid point. The time you spent studying up on a client, product, solution, concept, etc, is not readily apparent in your sales pitch. Take this blog for example: I currently have 8 different websites open across four browsers, Tweetdeck is linked into 8 different accounts with 11 columns open, my Skype viewer has two conversations going, I’ve got four telephone lines plus my cell phone at my beck and call, and Pandora is streaming House of Glass into my speakers.

And I’ve been at this since 8:30 this morning and it’s now 2:45 (14:45 for you military types)!

And the idea for this post: CAME YESTERDAY NIGHT!

Hours of research, thousands of words, and a few hand made graphics (for another blog) is all condensed down to one page, and roughly 500 words.

This is the same frenetic research method I’ve used all my life. And I use it to devastating effect when I need to make sales calls. Two weeks ago, I sent out five emails. And heard back from three organizations. Compare that to a recent article from Independent Agent Magazine, where a successful agency was generating return contact from every 10 people out of 25, with sales down to every 2 people out of 25.

That’s an 8% return rate.

The difference? Research! The agency just sends out fliers, and starts to follow up from there. Which is great! All I’m saying is this: A little research allows for a better informed decision.

You want to be the best, then you need to use the best.