Small Business Sales

Small business sales, particularly from the business owner's perspective, is often viewed as a significant challenge.

Why is selling so difficult? And why is small business sales even more so?

No matter what you do at some point you will have to sell an idea, a service, a product ... something ... to someone. (For example, selling a service will require a specific sales strategy for services; selling a product will require a different approach.) To be a small business success, you need success in selling.

Selling is NOT necessarily the primary strength of small business owners. In fact, like many people, you might actually dread doing the selling for your business.

You therefore have two choices:

1. learn how to sell and to love it (because if you don’t love selling it will show);

2. or hire or outsource someone to do the selling for you (if you choose to hire or outsource this function make sure you understand how to manage and build a good sales commissions and employee compensation program for them (and understand the role of human resources in building this program).

This is the challenge for small business owners: recognizing your strengths and weaknesses and acting on that recognition.

If you are not doing the selling yourself, but you are responsible for the sales force management of the people who sell for you, this small business sales information will still be useful.

For those small business owners who don't like selling, think about selling as you would about creativity. (It's not that big a stretch). I learned from Donna Williams, founder and creator of www.BusinessBurrito.com that thinking creatively is a willingness to think beyond what is and envision what could be. And that's exactly what you need to do when you sell; you must envision your most desired response - the sale!

As a small business owner, you will also need to adapt your professional selling skills approach depending on whether your business sells to other businesses (known as business-to-business selling or B2B selling) or whether your business sells to consumers (known also as business-to-consumer selling or B2C selling). Your small business sales plan will need to address your key account management program (assuming you have key accounts - most businesses do).

Before you start selling, you need to do a strategic marketing management review. In short, look for what your product differentiation advantages make you a leader. If you haven't already done so, make sure that writing a business plan with a focus on your strategic marketing and sales plan is a priority.

Summary of Small Business Sales Skills Needed :

1. Develop your own unique sales style – your sales strengths need to be emphasized; your sales weaknesses need to be eliminated (hire someone to compensate for your weaknesses if you need to).

2. Make sure your unique sales style includes a unique value proposition to ensure that you can offer a value based sales approach (what your business does that makes it unique from others) that fits with your business’ values and value statement, vision statement, mission and objectives.

3. Learn how to develop strong customer relationships and build your own unique sales story – no matter what anyone else says, selling is still relationship based (however the relationship, while important, is not the only part of the selling equation).

   In fact,a colleague of mine has been in sales all his life and says that THE most important part of sales is being in rapport with your prospect. If you want to know more about his ideas and about building rapport, Click Here.

4. Develop strong negotiating skills. Always work for a win/win solution. Focus on the unique value and benefits of your products and services. Match them to your customers’ needs or problems (your goal is to provide your customers with a solution to their problem – your product or service).

5. Learn how to write requests for proposal (a common buying method for corporate or government purchasing departments).

6. Learn how to sell on attributes other than price and build a strong competitive strategy - particularly if you are NOT a low-cost provider.

7. Learn how to ask for the order. Then be quiet until you hear either the yes or the objection (if you hear the objection make sure you can respond to overcome it - be prepared).

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