What Small Business Owners Worry About
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Monday, 23 June 08 - 05:36 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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Sorry, I've been slacking again. Sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging. I hope both of my readers still have the rss turned on.
I did an informal poll on a couple of the internet forums that I post on. I asked what the main 2 concerns are for small and start-up business. Not surprisingly, they overwhelmingly said they worry about getting new customers and creating repeat customers. I will spend the next several days talking about this.
Start with the customer in mind. Who is my customer? Begin by answering the Easiest Question: "is my customer a business or a person?". After this, the questions start to get alot harder. What kind of business? What size? etc. Is the person a man or woman? Is their income a differentiator? Their profession? Figure out as much as you can about your customer.
Why do you need to know this stuff? There are several reasons. First, you need to know how many of them are there. If your potential market isn't big enough, you can't build a successful business.
Second, you need to know how and why they might buy from you, so that you can understand their needs, and their process. This will allow you to better craft your selling message.
Third, you need to know where your customers congregate, because you need to find them and start a conversation with them.
More Soon. Go Serve!
Outcome, not Income
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Friday, 16 May 08 - 03:22 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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When you are running your business, one of the main concerns you deal with every day is new customers. How do I find them? How do I sell them?
When you are positioning your product or service to potential customer, don't begin by thinking about taking your offer and "fitting" it to their situation. Think instead of what outcome your prospect wants to have. Think and talk about the effect that acheiving that outcome will have on the client. Find out what will happen if the outcome is not achieved. Figure out how to assign dollar values to the outcome, and to not having the outcome.
Once you have the outcome clearly in mind, now you can talk about how your offering will cause or help that outcome to result.
We buy outcomes and results, not products and services. You don't sell freelance administrative services. You sell 5 extra hours each week to the busy executive, which that executive turns into extra revenue, or extra value for his clients.
I am working with a customer that needs to hire 55 new salespeople this year. I am not selling recruiting or hiring services. I am selling 55 new salespeople with a 95% probability of success as opposed to the 50% success rate they have acheived on their own.
As a small business owner, you should never think of your offering first. Think of the outcome that you help your clients acheive, then work backwards. In addition to doing a better job selling, this process will also give you ideas on additional products and services to add to your primary offering that will help acheive those outcomes better or faster.
Serve!
What I Stole From Dan Kennedy
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Wednesday, 07 May 08 - 08:48 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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You may remember me mentioning that I think Dan Kennedy's books encapsulate the attitudes of selling better than most authors.
This comes from page 60 in Dan Kennedy's book No BS Business Success:
Entrepreneurs actualy need to do more selling than many salespeople. We have to sell and re-sell ourselves on our ideas, goals, plans, and decisions each and every day...We have to sell our salespeople on our products, our services, our ideas, our leadership, themselves, their futures, on selling.
The decision is not whether to sell. The decision is whether to do it masterfully, and whether to enjoy it.
If you own a company, and you want it to succeed, you need to sell. Decide to enjoy it. Decide to do it masterfully. Decide to get some training and coaching if you need it.
Decide to SERVE! Your customers will thank you.
Engage Your Customer
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Tuesday, 29 April 08 - 03:40 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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Since I am now among YOU, the small business owner, I find myself relearning my own lessons.
Just starting out, you need to do a lot more outreach to find new customers. Unless you have an enormous marketing budget and the copywriting skills of Dan Kennedy, this means trying to meet a lot of new people.
The most common way to do this, at least for salesfolk, is to cold call. Cold calling is seen by non-salesfolk as the lowest form of outreach. Seth Godin would refer to it as a type of "interuption" marketing. On the other hand, it is the lowest cost, most controllable method of outreach, which is why it is used so much.
Here is the lesson. I have found, somewhat late in my career, that the only way to make cold calling work is engagement. So it is with all relationships, selling or otherwise. You need to engage the other party in order to have a conversation, selling or otherwise. Without engagement, the conversation, and the relationship, are going nowhere. Whether you are meeting someone for the first time at a Chamber event or over the telephone, you need to engage the other party as soon as possible.
The best way to engage is with a compelling question. By compelling, I mean a question that forces the other party to stop thinking about whatever it was that they were thinking about, and concentrate on your question. Further, this question can't be the kind of question that brings up the "anti-selling" defenses, but it needs to require thought in order to answer. I've been working on mine. Here is what I have so far:
"As far as your sales organization is concerned, what has been your most surprising disappointment in the last 12 months? What really caught you off guard?"
Please comment - give me your most compelling opening question, and your ideas to improve mine.
SERVE
The Best Sales Advice in a Single Sentence
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Wednesday, 09 April 08 - 02:10 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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The world's top Sales Force Development Experts, Sales Trainers and Salespeople are leaving their very Best Sales Advice in a Single Sentence on Dave Kurlan's blog. Click the link to read and add your comments!
Serve!
Sales Strategy for the Recession
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Monday, 07 April 08 - 04:55 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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Economic downturns are an interesting time for business of all types. Like ANY change in the business landscape, there is one thing that is always true: there will be winners, and there will be losers.
How do you tell the winners in a downturn? Increased market share.
If you and/or your salespeople sold well in the good times, you will need to be twice as good and work twice as smart to be successful in the down market. When the economy is going well, you can increase your sales even though your market share stays the same, or even decreases. On the other hand, the ONLY way to increase sales in a down market is to win market share from your competitors.
Many of the people that I talk to say that "with the economy going downhill, I don't have the time and/or I don't want to risk the resources on improving sales abilities".
Guess what? Your biggest fear in the down market is a decrease in sales. Guess what else? The only way to prevent the drop in sales is to get better at selling.
The economy is going down, whether we like it or not. The question is, will you see it as an opportunity to gain market share, or will you let fear make your decisions for you.
Survive. Thrive. Increase. Serve!
Head Selling
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Tuesday, 01 April 08 - 03:11 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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Whether you are a salespro or otherpro selling, you need to remember that selling is a mental game more than a numbers game. Attitude is over-rated, and attitude is NOT the key. Preparation and your belief system ARE the key. By preparation I mean sales skills, product knowledge and market knowledge. By belief system I mean that you MUST KNOW that what you offer is the best solution at the best price at the right time.
That's why I think your belief system is as important as your prepartion.
Get your head right.
Get in the Game.
Serve!
Coaching, And Why All Business Owners Need It
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Tuesday, 04 March 08 - 03:15 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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I just had an interesting experience. I got some unscheduled coaching from a couple old pros. This had to do specifically with an ad for a salesperson that I wrote for a client last week. I made a couple "oversights" (mistakes) in the ad, and these guys raked me over the coals for it. It was all in fun, and respectful, but the fact remained that I should have known better on some of this stuff. Luckily, "Need For Approval" is a sales weakness that I have already fixed, but honest criticism is never too much fun.
So, what can we all learn from this? First, by getting some coaching from colleagues who have been around awhile, I just got a little better at what I do. I also now have an opportunity to provide even more value to my client, and serve him better by doing a little more work for him. But neither of these positive outcomes would have been possible if I wasn't willing to get kicked around a little bit.
Here is a problem I see with a great number of business owners that will never become clients. They won't even consider getting any help, because they won't consider that they don't already know it all. Maybe they've just forgotten the simple joy of getting a little better at what they do. Thanks Mike. Thanks Rick.
Get Better. SERVE.
New Product Develelopment (A Customer Love Story)
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Monday, 03 March 08 - 05:15 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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Here is a great idea for a small business to improve its sales. Its a 2-step idea, and not only will it pave the way for sales to new customers, it will give you an opportunity for greater "share of wallet" with your current customers.
Here is what you do. Call or talk in person to your Top 10 Customers. Say this:
"You are one of my Top 10 Customers, and I really appreciate your business. I was thinking of how I might make your life easier by offering more of the things you need. If there was something you need or use, but I don't offer it, what would it be? If I carried it, is there any reason that you wouldn't buy it from me? Along those same lines, what one new thing from any vendor would make you life easier or better?"
For someone who is not a hardened sales pro, asking "If I carried it, is there any reason that you wouldn't buy it from me?" is very difficult. However. Asking questions and serving customers is the basis of all sales, and is the basis of all successful businesses.
So Ask. And SERVE.
Customer Focus - Get Some
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Wednesday, 27 February 08 - 02:41 PM (GMT) By John Newland in Selling |
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This is something that I will never be able to write about enough. I'd link to a bunch of marketing and sales gurus that say this all the time, but then this post would look like a link farm, because everybody talks about. Sadly, almost no one does it.
If you read as much about sales, marketing and personal development as I do, you will have noticed an interesting thing about customer focus. Where we once talked about merely "satisfying" the customer, everyone now talks about "delighting" the customer.
If you want your business to succeed and thrive, you need to think about your customer first, not what you want to do for them. What is the outcome that customer needs or wants? This is especially important with consulting or any other complex sale. Don't talk about your "patented 74 step process for selling greatness". That is "you" focused. Talk about the level of improvement in the skills and ability of the customers sales team, or the increase in sales for the company.
Do you do this in your business? Insert the outcome you want to acheive for the customer in the above sentence:
Bakery: Talk about the level of improvement in the pleasure their customers get from a flakier crust, or the increase in sales this causes for the bakery.
Auto Shop: Talk about the level of increase in happiness that their customers get from a bill slightly under the quote, and faster service, or the increase in referral business this causes for the shop.
Leave a comment with yours, so you can SERVE.
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