Business owners love doing their underlying business. Web designers love designing websites. Physicians love diagnosing and helping find the way to cure their patient's health issues. What business owners generally don't like doing, is selling their own service and their own products. This is a dilemma because a business isn't a business unless it's selling its goods and services. So, one of the biggest transitions a business owner has to make is to wearing the hat of "sales person" for the company.
People who have never "SOLD" professionally often have a rough time starting to sell. This often comes from their perspective that selling like being a used car salesman (No offense here used-car-sales professionals I'm talking generalities here....). There's often a fear of business owners that they will be perceived as being a pushy, ugly, salesperson. And the fact of the matter is, nothing could be further from the truth. They're already great people, they're people that care about their customers and yet they have this perception that they would be viewed as a pushy, nasty sales person. So the next question is: how do we fix this?
There are as many alternatives or strategies for selling as there are business owners. Each one of us comes into our business with a different skill set. Each one of us comes in with assets that we can capitalize on to sell our products and our services. Taking these skills and assets and using them in selling makes the process much, much easier.
Here some examples:
Someone might be averse to selling, but they love building a relationship, they love people. What they don't realize is building a relationship is one of the skill sets of very good salespeople. A "consultative sale" which takes the customers real needs into consideration comes from having a good relationship. The relationship allows both sides to communicate well. The sale is made when it makes sense for both.
Even someone who is great at writing can sell their product or service. How? By writing good information, so that their target market can understand their product or service more. Speaking has the same capability when you speak about your business. Each one of these skills can be used as a basis for marketing and sales.
Selling shouldn't be painful it should be an extension of you and your assets.
I'm Jerry Wistrom, Small Business Made Easy.
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