“Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
As a small business owner, it would probably be difficult to argue that you don’t want to be successful, with a desire to create financial independence for yourself, your employees and anyone else with a share or a stakeholding in your enterprise.
In fact no matter what type of business you are in, you’re in the business of making money – even if you are going to plough it all back into your enterprise.
But you’re only going to make money if you have a product or service that is selling enough.
However, in the majority of small businesses, it’s also a fact that they only make money if the business owner takes personal responsibility for selling their product or service, and for ensuring that all their sales activity is working properly.
But too many small businesses are simply not effective enough at selling their products and services. As a result they let good business prospects drift by, push existing customers away, letting their competitors pick up lots of new business in the process.
Money-making business owners, however, do the opposite. They work incessantly at finding ways to attract new customers, by using educational, informative and persuasive selling techniques that result in prospects knocking on their own doors, rather than their rivals’.
It’s as simple as that. Making money involves taking personal responsibility for making sure that your products and services are selling enough.
Here are five proven tips to help you improve your effectiveness at selling, no matter what line of business you are in:
1) Sell it thoroughly
This is probably the one area where every small business can be more effective. Just think about this. Would you put your best salesperson in front of a prospective buyer but only let them use a limited number of words to give their pitch? Why would you handicap them in this way? The old adage “the more you tell, the more you sell” applies in just about any situation. Your prospects want to know as much detail as possible about the benefits and value they will get from your product or service. So don’t hold back. Tell them as much as possible, not just some, of what they need to know.
2) Your offer is less important than your prospect list
In any form of direct selling, there are three components for success. The first and most important is your prospect list, which ideally will consist of people or organizations with a proven interest, want or propensity to buy or use your product or service. The second is your headline offer, which expresses the primary benefit or “unique selling proposition” your customer will get from you. The third is your sales brochure or letter – or in other words, your pitch. The money is in the list, as they say. But if your list isn’t right, your headline offer is just going to miss the target completely and your pitch will be unheard or ignored. So make sure your prospect list is full of quality leads, ideally built up from scratch by yourself.
3) Inject scarcity
A sales offer without a compelling reason for your prospect to act quickly is often dead in the water. The problem is that consumers and buyers generally are passive, and they won’t automatically act even if you present a great offer. You often have to give them the extra incentive to act quickly, or even now. One proven motivator is the fear of losing out, by injecting a sense of scarcity into your offer, where you play on people’s fear of not being able to take advantage of a good deal. You can do this by either limiting the time that people can respond to your offer, or by limiting the quantity that you are offering under that particular special deal.
4) Beat rather than copy your competitors
If you look closely at your competitors’ sales and marketing strategies and campaigns, you might notice certain offers that they repeat often. They almost certainly won’t be doing this because they’re clueless, but more likely because it is working and they keep making money from it. The key for you is to test this type of offer yourself to see if it works, and then look for ways to beat your rivals’ offer by providing an even better deal. Don’t just copy – improve it!
5) Use higher-priced offers
If you are able to offer both a lower and higher-priced version of your product or service, you’ll almost certainly find that a number of your prospects will go for the higher-priced offer. The psychology behind this is that it switches the choice in your prospects’ mind from a ‘buy or don’t buy’ choice to a ‘offer one versus offer two’ choice. This can sometimes lead to an improved response, and when this happens it usually results in a higher average sales amount being achieved.
These are just a few practical suggestions, but when all’s been said and done about this, it still comes back to you, the small business owner, taking responsibility for the effectiveness of your selling and making money in your enterprise.
Have you fully taken that responsibility?
