Small Business Blog from Atlantic Canada

I am "CA" Atreya (PMP, MBA), the author of this blog. I help businesses in Atlantic Canada achieve their BHAG successfully. You may subscribe to this blog using a feed reader (RSS).

There must an insane number of articles out there on this topic. But it never hurts to have a friendly reminder to keep us from falling back on the old way of selling.

An entrepreneur (let’s call him Smith) I worked with earlier was a great salesman. He could sell ice to an Eskimo. Seriously! In fact, he had sold his solution to a number of clients and collected partial payments, even before the product was in beta. When Smith spoke, you wanted to believe him. He was a smooth-talker. But he was constantly selling to new clients. There was no relationship building.

In today’s competitive environment, traditional sales approaches do not work. We all know that it is easy to sell to an existing customer than to secure a new customer. But how many small business actually follow that? I suspect a very small percentage of small businesses have got this right. This approach also depends on the existing corporate culture of the organization and the strategic approach of the firm.

Here is my top 5 five list of mistakes sales people in small businesses make:

1. Focus on close: Sales people are always focused on closing the sale.  “Sales is a numbers game. Call and push our solution. More calls leads to more sales. Chase prospects if you have to, but do not give up.” Haven’t we heard this time and time again. With a relationship mindset, a sales person’s objective is to identify problems your prospects have and how your solution can help solve those problems. Sure you need sales, but build a relationship in the process. It is easier to sell when a prospect feels he is not being sold to.

2. Product focus: Small businesses are constantly making this mistake. I was a sales person myself once. I remember going through this during our training. We always focus on our company,our solution and what we have to offer. Try another approach: start a conversation. Focus on a particular problem that your solution solves. Ask your existing customers why they purchased your solution. Use that to your advantage. Get their reference. For example, “I was talking to Mutual Acquaintance Co. and the CEO suggested I talk to you to see if you would like to turn around routine claims within 24 hours.”  You are identifying a problem here – shortening turn around time for routine claims – and asking permission to offer a solution.

3. Objection handling: We were given a list of all known objections and their answers. “Never take no for an answer” was the traditional approach. However, the sales person needs to identify the underlying reason for the objection. Never defend your point of view – you will never win. Some of the most common objections are: “I do not have the budget”, “Call me in a few months”, etc. When you hear these, you need to ask yourself, “Have you shown the prospect the value of your solution?” If you have not shown the numbers – for example, if you invest $10 on this solution, then you save $80 – then how do you expect to close the sale? Brow beating? It is a rare client who will not have the money or the budget if they see value.

4. Under-commit: With the pressure to achieve targets, sales people will often put pressure on operations to shorten the delivery times. This is specially true in small businesses where the CEO is sales driven. All logic and project management principles are conveniently forgotten. Given resources, man-power and time, the operations team can only push themselves so much and more often than not, the delivery date passes and A. the client does not get the product or B. work is shabby and client is not satisfied. This does not help build good relationships. Always, over-commit and under-deliver.

5. Not listening: This is one of my favorites. I have dealt with so many sales people who just do not listen. They love to hear their own voice. They sing the praises of their solution that they do not qualify the prospect at all. You cannot sell to someone if you do not know what they want. Identify your customers needs by listening to them and fulfill the need.

Make the entire sales process a stress-free experience for the prospect. Ask them about the problems they face and their attempts at solving them in the past. Then show them how your solution helps them with the problem they are trying to solve. Let your prospects feel they are not being “sold”. Building relationships takes time and effort.