Small Business Sales Tips - Part One

The Achilles heel of most small business owners is sales, especially cold calling. I hear this time and time again. So I've asked my friend and colleague, Gene D'Agostino, a sales trainer to share his lifelong knowledge of sales with me here. I can personally attest to his expertise as I was one of his students.

The dreaded sales call - Part One

Ask anyone if they like making sales calls & my guess is 99% of non sales professionals say they'd rather swallow daggers than pick up the phone to make a sales call - especially make a cold call. But yet, so much can be accomplished by simply picking up the phone. When you consider the cost of marketing, you have to admit that making a phone call is awfully affordable. So why don't more small business owners do it? Why do so many put it off for so long?

Well, what I discovered for myself was that I had the absolute wrong mindset. You simply MUST believe that you are selling something valuable & when done right, has a better ROI than most other marketing techniques.

I'm covering 5 of the Top Ten Most Common Mistakes that people make when making sales calls. Stay tuned for the second half in my next blog post.

Mistake #1 - They TALK instead of LISTEN
Too many salespeople monopolize the time they have in front of a prospect by talking too much. The 80/20 Rule of Marketing applies to Sales too. Salespeople should talk just 20% of the time, while allowing their prospects to talk 80% of the time.

Mistake #2 - They PRESUME instead of ASKING QUESTIONS
Salespeople tend to think they have all the answers. Learn to ask questions early on so that you fully understand their problem. Then offer the right solution to them that fits. Imagine you are a doctor writing a prescription. You would listen to your patient before writing a prescription to fix their ills. Same here.

Mistake #3 - They answer UNASKED QUESTIONS
For example, your prospect says "Your price is high," but that is not a question. Before you start talking about value or quality - or worse - lower your price get to heart of the issue.

Mistake #4 - They fail to get the prospect to reveal their BUDGET UPFRONT
Before you get so tied up in investing time (both yours as well as your prospects) you MUST get to the tough question "is your prospect ready, willing & able to financially commit to solving their problem." If yes, you're ready to begin the discussion in earnest, if not, then you're setting yourself up for the age-old standard reply "I'll think about it" which can drag on for a very long time.

Mistake #5 - They make TOO MANY follow up calls
Stop wasting time chasing a dead sale. If the prospect hasn't returned your calls or emails just leave it & move on. Remember that you will never close 100% of your prospects - often for reasons that are beyond your control. Put your energies towards qualified prospects only.

Remember, that marketing TODAY keeps you in business for TOMORROW. Contact us today to ask about My Affordable Marketing Plan TM - Small Business Marketing. Revolutionized.

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