If people 50 years ago saw how cut-throat and competitive today's business environment is, the majority would become school teachers. A lagging poor economy combined, intense globalization due to the internet as well as brick and mortar buildings under heavy stress to compete with the likes of Amazon have given most business professionals, entrepreneurs and salesmen / saleswomen a broken toe before they even begin the race.
Running a small business or are you on the sales team? Looking to maximize your revenue and increase your close rate? While no sales tip is foolproof, here are some ways that any small business can better connect with the customer and outsmart the competition:
1. Know Who Your Customer Is – You can’t be everything to everyone. Sit down and determine which type of customer is most likely to yield the most revenue. The variables may be geographic or may be size of company.
You don’t know until you reflect on and analyze past accounts.
2. Don’t Look Desperate – Clients want to buy from sales professionals who are confident in their product. Appearing desperate or over-eager (construed the same way) will translate into you not backing a great product or service.
3. Be Upfront and Be Honest – Clients appreciate honesty. Always be upfront as a sales representative; this even holds true if you may miss an account. It pays off in the end.
4. Have Your Marketing All Set – By having your marketing all set, you are going to know how to approach the selling process. Use your marketing as a basis and stick within the bounds of that message.
5. Recruit the Right People – If you don’t have the right people, you can’t maximize your sales. Take sales recruiting very seriously and look for employees who feel the same way about improving their business development techniques.
6. Understand What Makes You Different – Every offering is unique, but not every sales rep. is. Before your next sale, make sure that you know what is beneficial about your product and, in a subtle manner get that point across.
7. Know Your Customer Concerns – Your customers are coming to you for a reason. What is that reason? Believe it or not, it’s not always on the surface. Dig and you should find something very lucrative.
Once the concern(s) are found, make sure that you meet them.
8. Listen – As a sales representative, you must listen contently to what your prospects are saying. If you can’t hear their problems, their needs or what they are looking for, you can’t properly be a problem solver.
9. Work the Extra Hours – The best sales representatives are not slick talkers, rather they are hard workers and know their business. Clients will always latch on to vendors who show that they are putting in the work.
10. Put Client Service at the Forefront – If you don’t care about your clients and servicing them, they are going to stop paying you to do so. It’s the basic law of sales. Produce and be attentive or someone else will.
In the End
While there are dozens upon dozens of business development tips out there for the small business, pick the ones that you are most comfortable with and make sure they are implemented flawlessly.
And, if it doesn’t work at first, try something else. Sales is a living, breathing thing.
Ken Sundheim is the CEO of KAS Placement a sales and marketing recruiting firm specializing in recruiting for companies of all sizes. For free resume giveaways and open jobs, connect with KAS on FB!
The psychology of sales plays a significant role in who wins and who is put out of business in the game of selling. On a macro level, one could say that whoever instills the most confidence in the buyer that they are receiving what they wanted as well as what they need (sometimes mutually exclusive) wins.
Below, you’ll find 4 tips to help you with the psychology of selling as well as increase your persuasiveness with clients:
1.Be Upbeat and Come Across as Confident – If you don’t come across as confident and passionate about your product or service, don’t expect the potential customer to. While selling is especially hard for those backing a business that is not yet a known brand in their industry, you’re going to make it a lot harder if you fail to give off the perception that you are bullish on your product / service.
Even though entrepreneurs as well as sales professionals have down days, remember that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and getting there begins with a positive, upbeat attitude.
2.Be Resilient – The important of resiliency is something that I’ve had to learn more than once as a business owner. While divisions like accounting have more modest mood swings attached to them compared to that of the sales aspect or division, don’t be jealous and understand that it is simply part of the landscape that comes with the territory.
If you are easily frazzled, you are going to lose future accounts over things that have happened in the past. Move on and know that tomorrow is another day.
3.Have an Informative, Unique Website – If you are dealing with a smart client who is going to spend a significant amount of money, they are going to be doing some back research on your firm. Now, if you’re a sales representative for a company that currently does not have a great site, consider the following:
a. Suggest a new website for your business as well as draw up an overall marketing plan that not only is formally written, but that makes sense as well. People are visual thinkers, let them see the idea before buying.
b. Be open about the website to clients. Tell them that your website isn’t as full as you would like it right now, but you are more than happy to provide any information that they may need. In their eyes, if you are not hiding things such as a deficient website, chances are you are a straight-shooter and, thus good to do business with.
4.Make It Easy for Potential Customers to Buy From You – As a business owner or sales professional, don’t have 50 different options, 20 different payment plans nor should you have a contract that is more than 1.5 pages (in most scenarios) that is written in pure “attorney jargon.”
Always remember that the more simple the agreement, the more odds that the potential customer is going to agree and, ultimately adhere to them. Psychologically speaking, customers become afraid of being ripped off and legally bound to it when they see a wordy, overly comprehensive contract.
In the End
Even though you have to have the product and service to back what you are saying, psychologically sales is a mind game that you must be able to win. Adhere to the above tips and one large aspect of successful selling will be ready in your arsenal.
Ken Sundheim is the CEO of KAS Placement a sales staffing, media and marketing recruiting firm helping companies recruit top talent throughout the U.S.
Contrary to popular belief, technology in many ways has made it harder for any business owner or sales professional to sell. The competitive landscape in many industry verticals has risen mainly due to the rise in popularity of the mass emailing system which essentially can turn any company into a commodity competing against 100 other firms for the same clientele.
Unless the business owner or sales representative differentiates him or herself from the competition, they are going to get caught in a pricing war that will squeeze margins and lengthen sales cycles. That is, if they get a response at all.
Here are 3 sales tips on how to make more money, mitigate the odds of your business becoming a commodity and to gain a competitive advantage in your industry:
1. Determine What is Different About Your Offering – Upon approaching potential customers, determine what is unique about your offering and, when selling focus on those points. If you stress benefits that don’t differentiate your company, you are bound to lose to original, interesting pitches.
2. Determine Who Your Target Market Is – When first selling as an entrepreneur or at any level of business development, determine who is most likely to buy your services. When I started my KAS, we used to chase any and all incoming leads. That is, until I realized that there is only so much time in the day and there are only a small percentage of those interested who are likely to pull the trigger if you sell to them properly.
Now, I have it done to geographic scope as well as size of company and have altered my sales pitch as well as marketing tactics according to my findings. If you are still a small business, find a clever way to separate the good from the “time sucks” and change your selling strategy accordingly.
3. Personalize the Emails – When many customers buy products and / or services from a mass email, they feel somewhat slighted and, many times they feel unintelligent. This may deter them from buying a second time as well as prevent any up-selling opportunities on the first round of revenue generation.
Every client likes to feel as if they matter. Now that they are getting spammed more and more, companies have a heightened awareness as to what is a mass email and what is personalized, well-written business correspondence. The latter gives companies more confidence when it comes to account management after the sale.
To personalize these emails, you may want to discuss what you found on their website or, if you want to even be more thorough do some back research on the target individual, in a subtle manner mention your findings.
In the End
If you don’t differentiate yourself and your company by coming across as unique, upbeat and eager to do business, intelligent companies that tend to have the money to purchase over and over again, won’t buy.
Don’t let technology go against your selling efforts, rather use today’s tools to be more effective in day to day business development.
The short answer is that if you’re younger, you should probably be exposed to some form of business development, as selling is a part of business regardless of the level you are at.
There are certain personality facets that are particularly conducive to business development. Consider these prior to going into a position in sales. Here are just a few:
1. Can You Handle a Quota That May be Stressful at Times? Sales representatives are asked nearly every quarter to come through with numbers that are not always so easy to meet. However those who can meet them are given extra bonuses, as well as frequent raises.
Therefore, you must take the good with the bad.
2. Do You Like People? Yes. There are those who simply don’t like to deal with people and this includes some sales representatives. However the best business development professionals care about their clients and go the extra mile to ensure that they develop a bond and some form of lasting trust between the parties.
The aforementioned is absolutely key to sustained revenue growth as well as career success.
3. Do You Believe in the Product and Company? You simply cannot do sales if you don’t believe in the product and company. This, beyond getting past being shy and embracing rejection is the third biggest factor in learning how to become a great sales professional.
Do I Need to Pay My Sales Representatives a Base Salary?
This is often a question posed by some business owners and the answer is, if you want to get competitive sales professionals, you must pay them a base salary and commission.
The way our headhunters phrase the answer to this question is that if you don’t pay your sales representatives, someone else will gladly do so.
Will Sales Reps Work Hard Enough If I Do?
Yes. Sales representatives do not get motivated or demotivated because of a paycheck.
Instead sales employees get motivated or demotivated by the management of a company, the products or services that company offers and the corporate culture within that organization.
Can KAS Recruit for Positions That Do Not Pay a Base Salary?
We cannot for a few main reasons:
1) To ensure that we maintain a relationship with the best sales professionals, our recruiting firm has to be selective as to the clients we take on.
Representing clients who do not pay adequate salaries lessens our corporate reputation which is the key to helping both our current and future clients find the best business development employees.
2) Recruiting job applicants who are willing to accept no base salary or a declining base salary as time goes on is exceedingly hard because the applicants whom we currently have in our databases are almost exclusively receiving base compensation.
That is not to mention that for every “yes” our headhunters received from a candidate, we would have to take the time to go through 100 “no’s.”
3) Sales representatives who do not receive base salaries are much more prone to turnovers, thus undermining the prolonged guarantee our recruiters give to our clients.
Therefore, to receive full payment on these individuals would probably take multiple staffing attempts, which would significantly decrease our rates in the end.
In closing, I don’t know why this irritates me so much, but I just don’t see the human value in thinking someone should work for you for free.
4) If a company is not going to pay a base salary for its sales representatives, it does not make much sense to spend money for a recruiting firm to find them.
Pictured above, CEO of KAS Placement executive recruiting, Ken Sundheim has had articles and / or interviewers throughout major media and trade sites ranging from Forbes to the NYTimes.
Running a sales and marketing recruiting firm, I am consistently interacting with hiring clients looking for sales personnel, as well as dealing with sales job seekers of all levels in conjunction with training my own team on the best business development and marketing practices.
Even though we have multiple divisions in my company – one which is geared more towards selling while one is for the more analytical personality – everyone is taught sales and marketing within the organization.
After doing so for 5+ years, I have come to the conclusion that sales and marketing can be taught to an extent by an outside party (outside party being anyone other than the individual learning), or can definitely be self-taught, but still many of the skills necessary for sales or marketing success are given to us at birth and during the early formation of our personalities, thus making harder for those not given the aforementioned gift to catch up.
Why Can Sales Not Be Fully Taught?
Nobody other than the aspiring business development representative can fully teach another person sales simply because one of the biggest barriers to sales success is coming out of one’s skin – something only one can do for oneself.
Conversely, for anyone to want to learn something, there must be some sort of internal motivator and, even if sales could be fully taught, if the teacher does not have a receptive student, they can only go so far.
How Can Sales Be Partially Taught?
When teaching someone business development tactics, the teacher must not focus on things such as memorizing a scripted pitch. Rather, the teacher should focus on the sales representative learning the business, concerns and motivators of the target market.
Rebuttals will always remain unheard if the target customer does not respect the business acumen of the sales representative and they will not give heed to what the sales representative says unless the sales representative knows what he or she is saying.
I have found that the best way to train sales representatives is with patience, formal sales training that is organized as well as collaborative, and with a training program that not only allows mistakes, but encourages them as well.
In The End
Train as you must, if the business development professional is not eager to learn sales and does not have his or her heart in it, there is only so much magic one can work.
Ken Sundheim 