Guaranteed Access: How to Get Clients Without Selling

by Doug White

You have a great product or service. You know that a large number of people/businesses would benefit from its use. In other words, you have built a better mouse trap, so where are all the folks beating a path to your door? We're sorry; it just doesn't work like that. If you want to sell your product/service, you will have to find a way to get access to the key decision makers. Those people who can actually buy something from you and your business. This is the dilemma that faced Bill and Cathy King in 2009. Bill and Cathy had both lost their jobs during the worst economy of their lifetime. At their ages, they knew it would be next to impossible to find comparable positions in their hometown. They decided to open a consulting agency that would serve small businesses. They were smart, educated, and talented individuals. They were highly qualified to succeed - except neither knew how to sell. They joined a group that promised to teach them this critical skill, but after four months of vigorously applying the tactics they had learned, they had exactly zero clients. Bill and Cathy knew they needed to meet and build relationships with business owners, but they were unsuccessful doing this through normal networking, sales strategies, and cold-calling. It was time to invent a new way to get clients. One that didn't involve selling.

Audible Audio

Published February 7, 2017

About the author

Doug White is a Partner in Whitestone Partners, Inc. Doug has twenty-five years of experience helping companies improve their bottom line. His career is characterized by its diversity and breadth. He began his professional life with McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s preeminent strategy consulting firms. He has held C-Level jobs since 1991 (Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer), and for over five years he successfully headed several large divisions at Capital One Financial with P&L responsibility.

Doug has successfully led start-ups and turnarounds. He has been a part of executing acquisitions on both the buy side and the sell side. He has worked successfully in fields ranging from heavy duty manufacturing to sales and distribution, from consumer lending to investment brokerage. He has managed groups of more than 3,000 people. The common thread through each assignment is that Doug has been the catalyst for creating significant bottom line value. He has specialized in taking businesses that were broken and fixing them, or taking businesses that were successful and raising their performance to the next level.

Doug holds a B.S. in Physics from Randolph-Macon College, where he was the starting center on the varsity football team that won three conference championships during his four years. He received his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering with very high honors and his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from The Georgia Institute of Technology. At Georgia Tech Doug was twice named Student Engineer of the Year and was elected to membership in the honorary engineering fraternity Tau Beta Pi. He received his Master of Business Administration with distinction from Harvard Business School, where he finished in the top 10 percent of his class.