Small Business Sales - The Painless Way to Succeed

The Achilles heel of most small business owners is sales, especially cold calling. I hear this time and time again so this blog and next month's, I am addressing this very important topic.

My friend and colleague, Gene D'Agostino has graciously shared his lifelong knowledge of sales with you here. Gene is the former VP of TEM Associates a sales training organization. I can personally attest to his expertise as I was one of his students.

Here, we whet your appetite with some Common Sales Mistakes made by both sales & non-sales professionals.

Next time we'll tackle attitudes & techniques that will assist you in developing a systematic sales approach - one that can be used for "cold calls," leaving voicemails that get returned, holding your price and navigating through multiple decision-makers. So whether your business-to-business, or business-to-consumer you will learn easy to apply sales techniques that will help you grow your bottom line.

So, let's begin.

The dreaded sales call - Part One (Stay tuned next month for Part Two)

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 sales is done right, it has a better ROI than most other marketing techniques.

Like everything else in life it is important to have a plan for your efforts. Without your own selling system you will default to the prospects' intentions. So many times buyer & seller are just dancing in the dark, not sure about their respective roles or responsibilities. This is called "mutual mystification." We'll help you overcome that as well as create the major concepts of a sales system.

The first concept in a sales system is to focus on the customer. In Gene's more than 35 years selling, he says "Most salespeople think they're focusing on customer needs, but they're simply waiting for a break in the conversation to jump in with their canned 'benefits' speech." Ah, so true. We've all experienced this whether we're buying a house, a car, advertising, or a complex software solution for our business. We're being 'sold' & we hate it - we want to 'buy' instead.

The second concept is that you must get the prospect emotionally involved. People (yes, even business people) make their decisions emotionally & then justify them intellectually. You know "Wow! Those $250 shoes [that you'll wear maybe twice] are only $99!"

And lastly, a good salesperson must interrupt patterns. If you move and sound and act just like every other salesperson your prospect has encountered in the past, you will get the same kind of run around those who came before you did. If you act differently, you'll get different results. Results that bring you success.

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 UP FRONT - 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, waste far too much of your time & make you look bad.

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.

Stay tuned for #6 - #10 in next blog!

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