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Improve your sales skills even if you aren’t in sales

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Sales, regardless if you are an actual salesperson or not, is just part of life and your career. Sales doesn’t always mean selling a product or service to a customer, in fact, you are probably giving sales pitches just about every day. That’s right, every time you pitch an idea, make a suggestion, or even go on a job interview, you are “pitching” yourself. So how can you improve your sales skills if you don’t pitch people often?

First off, selling kinda has a bad rap. You typically think of a sleazy used car salesperson, telemarketer, or door to door salesperson. But if you think about it, sales is really the most fundamental life skill. People think sales is pushing someone to buy something they don’t need, want, or can afford. But really, sales is moving someone to take action. And if you think about everything you did today, I’d bet quite a few of your actions involved selling. Am I right?

People are often uncomfortable with sales because they 1. Don’t understand it and 2. Can’t get past the used car salesman cliché. Selling is all about persuading, inspiring, and leading. It’s about collaboration and driving change. The best salespeople make you feel like the sale was your idea. Why? Because you trusted them, they had a genuine interest in your problem, they provided a solution that they knew would fix your problem. You wanted to buy from them.

People often buy for 2 reasons, to gain pleasure or avoid pain. Your job is to figure out which one it is. Sales really is about networking and listening to your customers. Find out who the decision-makers are, learn as much about them ahead of time as you can. When you talk to them take an empathic approach, one that focuses on understanding the other person and what they need. Serve, not sell.

What do the best salespeople have in common? They plan and practice. You wouldn’t show up to a golf tournament and expect to win having never swung a golf club in your life, right? The best in the biz have mentors and coaches who help them practice and make sure their conversation flows – they help them improve their delivery. Practice on friends, peers, coworkers, family, etc. until you get your pitch just right.

Making your “pitch” can be very nerve-wracking at times, but even with all that adrenaline flowing, it’s important to stay calm and not ramble. People don’t want to listen to someone drone on and on about how great something is. Selling should be a conversation, not a lecture.

A good salesperson knows when to fold ‘em and when to walk away. Yes, the late, great Kenny Rogers knew what he was talking about. Most salespeople hear no at least a few times before they make a sale, but they know when to press on, because that no is really a “not yet”, and when to throw in the towel. They are flexible and understand the path that their customer has to take in order to move forward.

Sales is a numbers game – it’s highly possible you will fail more than you succeed. However, it’s important that you don’t quit. You need courage and to always remember the long game. Sales is never rarely a one and done deal, and most times it’s actually not about you. If a customer is happy where they, they won’t get pleasure from buying and aren’t experiencing pain, then now is not the time. Check back in 3 months.

Have any great sales advice to add, we’d love to hear it! We also wrote a blog on increasing sales without a sales team, check it out.

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From Employee to Consultant – the Transition

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There is so much damn talent in the Boomer pool.  As part of that generation, I’m continually fascinated by the number of us who have zero interest in really retiring.  Sure, most want to get out of the structure and politics of Corporate USA, but they aren’t ready to drive a golf cart around the Villages in Florida yet – they want to share their brain power and get paid for it.

Many execs I talk to are fascinated with the prospect of becoming a business coach or a consultant specific to their field of expertise – be it operations, leadership, sales or marketing.  Some get even more granular and are industry specific such as finance, manufacturing or insurance.  They want the flexibility, they want to choose who they work with, and they want to feel like they have purpose – that they are creating a legacy.

The roadblock happens when they actually have to launch a business and market themselves.  Most stop at this point and determine it’s not worth the effort – they become overwhelmed and either stick with their job for another 10 years or head to Boca and become snowbirds.

It’s not that difficult to make the transition. It’s a process. 

  • The key is to flesh out your biz idea while at your current job. Let’s actually find out what your target client profile is, what you will charge, what your capacity is, and hell – let’s land a few clients.  In other words – let’s try it before you commit.
  • In the consulting world – you don’t NEED a ton of clients to make 6 figures. You just need the right ones.  (see the first bullet)
  • You do need to be a biz owner – so you have to set up an LLC, get insurance, hire an accountant and an attorney, manage the books and pay taxes – oh and find damn health insurance which is often a big expense. If you can ride the health insurance coattails of a spouse or partner – that’s a win!
  • You do need to market yourself and be a salesperson. This is the part where most execs melt down – but deep breath, this isn’t all that difficult.  No need for a 5 figure website and fancy branding package to start – let’s first see if you like it.  Next, we start with your current network – there is a ton of low hanging fruit to tap into for your first clients.   Once you’ve decided to go forward, setting up a simple website and building out content, nurturing your pipeline and clients will be important.  That’s Phase 2 and you can always outsource that part – marketing is a revenue generator not an expense.

I’ve coached countless people through this process with grand results. Plus, I’m one of “those” – I left my corporate job to become a biz coach and marketing consultant/implementor.  In other words – I’ve been in your shoes.

If you aren’t ready to retire – don’t.  Consider the consultant gig – it’s beyond rewarding on so many levels.  Legacy type rewarding – you are literally will change lives and make a great living doing it…on your terms since YOU are the CEO.

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No sales team – no problem. How to increase your sales without a sales team

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When you own a small business, you may not have resources available to hire a dedicated sales person, but you still need to make sales, right? When sales are your goal but not necessarily your specialty, you need to make sure every lead, every prospect counts. That one missed sale could really affect your bottom line when you are just starting out. So how do you kick your sales effort into overdrive without a robust sales process and team? Check out these great tips to give your sales effort the boost it needs.

Email, email, email. If you didn’t read my previous blog on the importance and value of email marketing – go back and read it here. Email marketing is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to reach your prospects and clients. And yes, you should be emailing your current clients too – they still need nurturing to get them to continue to buy your services/products and buy additional services/product. Just because they bought once or twice, doesn’t mean they will continue to buy. Make sure you list is targeted as well. Don’t blindly email everyone whose email you have – unless they sign up for a specific newsletter. Make sure the people on your list are people who could actually buy your offering.

Be mobile-friendly. From your website to your emails to your social media profiles – everything should look great and be easy to navigate on mobile devices. Why? Because pretty much everyone nowadays owns a smartphone or tablet and they are using them to open emails, check social media, and visit websites. If they can’t quickly and easily access you on a mobile device, you may be losing a lot of sales.

Make the pathway to a sale easy. Can your customers easily place an order with you? Even if they can’t order direct from your website if it’s a service-based business, do you make your process easy? Are they able to get ahold of you or someone who can take the sale? Is there a lot of mundane paperwork they need to complete? Streamline your sales process to make it as easy as possible for your client to work with you.

Networking and referrals. What’s better than free marketing? Your network of peers sending prospects your way via referrals. When you network and build up a tribe of people who know you, know what you do, and genuinely like you – they are happy to refer business your way, especially when you reciprocate. The saying it’s not what you know but who you know still holds value.

Amazing customer service. Customers really learn a lot about your business from the customer service you provide. Providing timely responses to calls and emails, answering questions they may have about the product, and giving them value during the decision-making process could be the deciding factor in whether they purchase from you or not. Don’t go AWOL after the sale either – customer service is just as important as making the sale – you don’t want people spreading negative feedback that you could have easily controlled.

Still have questions on how you can take your sales to the next level – give us a call. We can help with everything from how to approach your prospects to defining your sale’s pitch and message.

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