I used to hate sales. Maybe “hate” is too strong of a word. I was just bad at it and I didn’t realize how bad until a prospect stopped me in the middle of my initial consult with him and guided me into a proper sales process.
Soon after that humbling experience, I hired a business coach to teach me how to properly sell and to reframe what I thought and felt about sales.
As a small business owner, you might also have a negative perception of sales. Is your idea of sales as being pushy, manipulative, or dishonest? Doing anything to get someone’s money?
That is the reputation of old-school hard-sell tactics, made infamous in movies like, “Wall Street” with Gordon Grecko’s “Greed is Good” motto.
When you use a client-focused approach to sales, it becomes a service to them.
Clients are the foundation of your business and the reason it can exist and thrive. In order to get clients, you have to sell your service.
In fact, your number one job, isn’t what you do as your service. Your number one job is to sell.
If you don’t have clients, you don’t have a business.
This doesn’t mean you have to learn high-pressure sales techniques. Effective selling is about clarifying and meeting the prospect’s needs.
Making a sale gives you the opportunity to use your expertise to serve your customer in the best way you can. So think ‘serving’ rather than ‘selling’ and you’ll feel confident in the process.
Rather than thinking that you have to do anything to close a deal, focus on developing deeper relationships with your ideal customers.
You will experience much greater success in the long-term with this approach. You will propose the best, most relevant solutions to resolve your prospects’ problems. When you do this, they’ll naturally want to buy from you.
The next course in LIFT, our online learning community for solo business owners and freelancers, is called, “Sales as a Service”.
In this course, you’ll discover that you don’t need to be a ’natural salesperson’ to be successful in selling.
You’ll learn how to develop the essential relationships that lead to sales and master key communication skills such as listening and questioning. You’ll discover ways to collaborate with your prospects and coach them to make the right decision for their unique needs so that they’re completely satisfied with their purchase.
By the end of this course, you’ll appreciate just how natural the selling process can be, which will result in more sales and steady growth for your business.
