Trojan Horse of Sales

This week we’ll walk through a strategy that my team and I call the Trojan Horses of Sales. 

Drew McLellan and I broke down this strategy when writing our book, Sell With Authority. If you don’t have a copy of the book, you can request a free paperback or Kindle version here. No charge for shipping. Nothing. It’s 100 percent free.

Okay — let’s dive into the Trojan Horse by going to the story of the ten-year Trojan war. The Greeks could not get past the city gates of Troy, try as they might, but they just couldn’t do it. So, they decided to give the appearance of licking their wounds and sailing back to Greece in defeat. 

The Greek armada left the shore, and in its place was the wooden Trojan horse that has been cast in movies and stories ever since.

As the story goes, the Trojans, in celebration, wheeled the horse past their massive city gates, and a grand celebration started. But — if they’d done a little bit of due diligence, they would have found the Greek strike force hidden inside the belly of the horse.

Late that night — the strike force exited the horse, opened the city gates, and the Greek army rushed. And the Greeks captured the city of Troy. 

Minus the subterfuge and military deception — you can leverage your cornerstone content similarly and with a specific series of downstream activities to make this strategy effective. 

First — you’ll need a “Dream 25” list of prospects. As we’ve covered in previous videos, if you haven’t niched down, I will tell you the Trojan Horse of Sales Strategy is more effective when you’ve niched down because you know the ponds that you’re fishing in.

Second — the Trojan Horse strategy is channel-agnostic. Suppose you want to have a podcast, great. If you want to have a video series, great, this works. Maybe you want to write a book — awesome.  Or a blog series or a series of eBooks. All of those are great. The only requirement is that you must interview your Dream 25 prospects as the basis of the content. In my previous video, we discussed whether you like to talk or write. This strategy works regardless of what you want to talk about or write.

So what happens downstream? Here’s what we have seen work well. We send what we call a “framed quote.” which is where we select a snippet of wisdom (think two sentences that highlight something smart your guest shared during the interview). We put that into a 5×7 type layout with your logo very small in the lower right corner. It’s a visual reminder of where they shared it, but it’s all about their smarts in a nice frame. Then we send that to them in a really lovely package. So when they get that, HOLY BANANAS, it creates a bit of a wow, as you might imagine. 

Then they get something else from us every six to eight weeks. Not a sales pitch.

So let’s map this out. First — is the framed quote. Second — we may feature their smarts in an eBook and mail them a hard copy of an actual book that we think will be helpful based on their industry (not our books, something else that can be helpful). Then they may get featured in Forbes.com, and they know that happened because of us, so yeah, for that.

Every six to eight weeks — we’ll share something with them, whether it’s a gift, a book, or we’re featuring their smarts differently. It’s consistent, and a thank you for sharing their insights and wisdom with our audience, which we’re grateful for.

After about six to nine months — if your prospect hasn’t reached out — then we send what we call the “door opening email” — it’s simple, and it goes like this: 

“Hey [NAME] — thanks again for being my guest on episode number XX [insert name of podcast]. I’m grateful for you taking the time to share your insights and wisdom with our audience. Super helpful.

In fact, my team and I went back and relistened to your episode, and when you said X, that made us think about Y. And we do Y really well here at Predictive. 

Is there a day or time next week we could sit down and chat about that?”

And then you no longer look like someone searching for their next prospect or sale. Instead — it’s two people coming together to exchange ideas and see how they can help one another. And that’s a beautiful thing. 

Onward with gusto!