This week I went to a happy hour organised by a group of property investors. I get lots of invitations to happy hours. It seems to be very popular these days. Of course, the purpose of a happy hour is to network for the purpose of doing business. At that same happy hour, I even met someone who was on her third happy hour of the week and it was Wednesday.

As is customary at such an event, people introduce themselves, chat together and exchange business cards. The most proactive will follow up in the days that follow with those who have left their business cards, but far from everyone will do so.

That's the usual way of doing happy hours and if you're in business or sales, I invite you to attend the occasional happy hour.

Moi, j’ai une autre façon de voir les 5 à 7. Une façon qui, selon moi, amène encore plus de résultats, mais qui, je vous l’accorde, demande plus de « guts ».

It's about making 5-7 new contacts a week. By contact, I mean actually making face-to-face contact with someone you want to do business with.

A contact can be a cold call to someone you want to solicit, but it can also be 5 to 7 contacts to customers who bought from you last year and you want to follow up. Or it could be 5 to 7 contacts with people you met at happy hours (I hope I'm not confusing you too much). Or it could be a mixture of all of these.

Pensez-y un  peu. Au delà des clients qui entrent déjà en contact avec vous chaque semaine (visites en magasin, commandes par courriel, etc.), imaginez que vous entrez en contact « verbal » avec 5 à 7 personnes qui ne vous auraient pas contacté sans cela.

And imagine that you make these 5-7 weekly contacts every week of the year (okay, okay, not during your holidays!).

That's 5-7 contacts per week x 45 weeks, for a total of about 270 contacts (6 x 45).

Admettons que vous « closez » des ventes avec seulement 10% (ce qui n’est pas beaucoup) de ces contacts qui ne seraient pas entrés en communication avec vous. Cela fait 27 ventes de plus dans l’année.

I don't know what 27 extra sales mean to you, but if you are a real estate broker, it's 27 x $10,000 = $270,000.

If you are a furniture seller: 27 sales at $300.00 (commission) = $8100.00

If you are a car salesman: 27 sales at $500.00 (commission) = $13,500.00

Etc., etc… Peu importe ce que vous vendez, si vous êtes payé à la commission et que vous participez à des 5 à 7 « normaux » et appliquez aussi les 5 à 7, façon Guy Bourgeois, je vous jure que votre revenu va vraiment grimper dans la prochaine année.

You think I'm exaggerating? OK! Let's assume that only 5% of people buy instead of 10%; even then, the difference in your portfolio would be remarkable.

As in all things, you decide!

Have a good happy hour!

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