As sales professional you need to overcome many obstacles, to emerge with a sale. You call up and get through to the decision maker of your prospect; you establish their status quo; you define their need and set the hook by outlining the core benefit using your solution to increase ROI. You set up a meeting or a scheduled follow up call – all while establishing a friendly and personal relationship. At the meeting you pitch like there is no tomorrow, you ask buying questions and you handle upcoming objections. Using your product is a “No Brainer” for them and you may even attempt to close and to offer the sale. But still the client is not buying. Instead you are sending proposals; you are sending PowerPoint presentations; you are sending video testimonials and all collateral you can get your hands on. You follow up and follow up and follow up – until you get rejected. Does this sound familiar? What have you missed?

Many sales professionals are telling me that hey have done everything possible, but the prospect needed time to consider the offer. Sales professionals most often overlook the most obvious: There is no compelling reason to buy just now. Considering their status quo – until now they were perfectly fine with the way it is – and the fact that your solution will be also available tomorrow and next month – why taking time aside from a busy agenda if there is no hurry? In fact, while you are busy sending proposals and doing follow ups, the next sales man with another incredible idea is already calling them.

Urgency is you best friend? Wrong. Only believable urgency throughout the entire encounter with the prospect will help you to close quicker.

How often have you heard that when the presentation is finished that the sales professional is saying something like “…and I need to say, this solution is almost sold out, you must decide until the end of the week.” – or “…we have a special promotion available until today, so I need your commitment now”.

These statements will kick you out of the door. Why? Because they are so obvious that he sales man just wants the sale. He doesn’t care about the customer, he is only thinking about his commission. It’s a lie. Maybe the benefits in the presentation had been not to a 100% truthful as well? When trust in you as a person or company is fading, the sale will never happen.

How to use urgency properly – applying the staccato effect.

The key to urgency is that is only works when three objectives are met:

• When it is believable
• When you are speaking to the decision maker
• When used properly

While the first two objectives are easy to master, let me give you the idea how to implement it within your sales cycle.

You call up the decision maker of a prospect, and you introduce a grain of urgency right after the opening statement. A sentence like “… You are hard to get hold off, I hope this doesn’t come to late and we still have a chance of working together… let’s see”. The grain of urgency makes people curious. It’s like showing a candy to a child, while hinting that it might be to late to have it. Get the idea? The grain of urgency in the beginning is needed as a foundation for increasing urgency, and outlining the details, bit by bit – never all at once.

Closing Your Meeting Using Urgency Properly

Closing to get a personal meeting, or getting an agreement to set up a future conference call, should always have some urgency in it. It should be clearly stated, and builds on the grain of urgency you have seeded within your introduction statement. It could be something like: “It’s important that we meet personally, because not only are you wasting some great ROI, but also because once the new tax laws go into effect, you may lose an important advantage above your competitors.” Insert whatever applies best into your urgency line. I always warn not use money incentives or discount, because a discount always means that the service you are going to offer your prospect may be overpriced in the first place. It should always be believable, not something which sounds phony or simply made up.

Tying Urgency To Industry Knowledge

If possible, try to put urgency in the real context of their industry. Be an industry expert. You know what is going on in the market. You know the challenges of the industry, you know the challenges an SMB has fighting against the Amazons and Online Shops. Whatever you use, make sure you know your stuff.

SPIN Questions, Trial Closes and Asking For The Sale

You may use all kinds of techniques when actually presenting your product and services. This article is not about these techniques, although I recommend SPIN, or in general, I recommend asking intelligent questions, which make prospects think. At some point you will handle possible upcoming objections, and at some point, once your prospects sees value in purchasing, and also agrees in benefitting from using your product or service – you got to pop the question, right?

If you have not applied the concept of urgency until now, it is now too late using this technique. When asking the question, chances of rejections or the most common “We have to think about it, why don’t you send us a written proposal” are much higher.

If you have used urgency in the beginning and in the middle of your sales process, you may sound like a caring professional. “Mr. Big, as we are clear on all details, we need to make sure that I can block the quantity of our incredible product you need – especially delivering them in the time you need them. As I already mentioned in the beginning, availability is a little tight. As to the fairness to my colleagues, I can block them for a specific time frame of 3 working days. Do you think we can do all necessary paper work right now, or should we meet again in 2 days?”

Again, whatever you are using is up to you, as long it is consistent throughout your pitch. You start with a seeding urgency in the beginning, and accelerate step by step through out your sales cycle. Always tie urgency to industry knowledge, to make it more believable. Always build urgency on top of urgency you have stated prior, making it more present within your presentation, without blowing it.

In the end, asking for the sale becomes much easier, decisions will be quicker, and you will close more deals.

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In football (or soccer, depending where you live) one of the former favorite game tactics used to be “kick & rush”. You can describe it with getting the ball as quickly as possible in front in the opponent’s end zone, using long kicks, quickly passing the midfield, to strike a goal within minutes or rather seconds.

This tactic isn’t used as often anymore, as it bears the risk for the opponent to intercept the ball, where everyone is still in forward motion.

In sales you can describe it as “one call close”. The sales man is calling up a prospect he hasn’t met before, maybe meets them in person and sells on the spot, within the first meeting. Does it happen? Oh yes, especially if there is a price incentive involved. Does it happen often? No, as pressuring the sale often gives you more objections you have to master. And unless you are selling a damn hot product, with incredible value for a matching price (also to be named a “No Brainer”), I doubt that the frequency of selling in a first meeting will be sustaining. As always, you see exceptions in certain industries or technological advanced products (iPhone anyone?).

Prospects in a sluggish economy are more conscious how they spend their money, and how long there are getting tied into contracts. Quick wins may be lost just as quickly, as there is no deep and trusting relationship between the seller and buyer.

Shortcuts in sales are getting more difficult to find. It may needs discipline, but in taking all the steps needed to get it done properly, will give you the advantage of

• selling for a better price, with less discount.
• selling a higher value, a more premium version of your product
• getting more time to fix issues, if they arise.
• a happier customer
• a lot of referrals

And the best, it doesn’t necessarily take much longer than using the kick & rush method. What are the key things you should do while selling?

• Build a relationship with the prospect. The better the understanding – the same wave length – the easier it will be to present the value to the prospect. You will hit less resistance, obscure objections or even rejections, as the prospect is giving you a little bit of more trust.

• Always include all stakeholders of the purchasing decision in your sales presentation. A veto from the wife of the prospect may kill the deal in the last second. Sounds familiar when you are just about to book a weekend playing golf? Needless to mention, only sell to the decision maker(s), not the employees underneath him.

• Don’t pressure your prospects without reasons. Of course you must use believable urgency to give the prospect a reason to decide in your favor, but once it becomes unbelievable or even unreasonable, prospects will be looking for a way to back out. Or even worse, they disappear like magic. They take no phone call form you, or react on any email you send.

Depending how quick you can built the relationship with your prospect, the quicker he will open up to your product’s values. Once believable urgency is applied, your sales cycle will spin quicker. Just don’t rush your prospect with tricks, don’t oversell, stay honest. A long lasting client relationship will bring you more referrals than hard-selling ever does.

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Building a team of Super-Heroes within a sales organization is difficult. Sales professionals are incentivized to earn personal commission. Do you want to have more sales, or true team spirit? How about both?

• An office of musketeers has overall better sales performance.
• In an office of musketeers, the strong help the weak, to overcome weaknesses, which lead to an overall better performance.
• An office of musketeers has a far better atmosphere, which incentivizes to work harder.

Team spirit can be compared similar to socialism in comparison to capitalism; egocentric vs. harmonic behavior.  However, the reason why it works in a controlled environment, like an office, is because people are not hired randomly. You will not hire a person you are convinced who can’t sell.

Just think of prominent examples: Music bands like U2 are tremendously successful because everyone in the group has its place. Bono alone can’t sell billions of records all himself, unless he has his group around him.

Alexandre Dumas the author of the original “Three Musketeers” described how friendship among a team might fulfill wonders, even when the odds are against them. Professional friendship within an organization can do the same, if their manager encourages team activities, and rules out unfair behavior from the beginning.

However, many team managers will let selfish behavior pass, as long as it brings new business. Selfish behavior will isolate individuals and seeds mistrust among the team, which leads to an unfair competition and accelerates further unfair behavior. In this environment revenue won’t be stable, as it will propel first, before it crushes – when people decide to leave.

Look at your team and evaluate the potential – will your team stay together where all are winners, or does half of them already look around for a new opportunity elsewhere?

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Having worked with many Sales Professionals in various industries, I often wonder what makes a Sales Professional a great Sales Professional – especially when it comes to prospecting over the telephone.

Whatever your objective is when making a call, to arrange a meeting to demonstrate your products or services, or to sell remotely over the phone, you must achieve the following:

• Getting through to the Mr. Big, the Decision Maker.
• Capture the interest within the first 10 seconds, before you are getting dismissed.
• Demonstrate real value vs. perceived value within a minute of the call.
• Learn about the potential buying motive
• Overcome real objections and knee jerks
• Achieve your primary objective of the call.

It is safe to say that the first contact with the Decision Maker is the key to sales success. If you struggle with one of the above listed elements, your chances to sell are close to zero.

What is the common factor to link all together?

Natural confidence. Confidence in yourself – confidence in your offering – confidence in the projected value for the prospect – leads to confidence in your voice and words, which leads to a call between two equal partners – You and the Decision Maker.

People want to buy from people who are on the same level. If you are perceived begging, being too humble or using too many adjectives, you will be perceived inferior to the person who is taking your call.

Success breeds Success

Ever noticed that sales professionals who have just made a sale will have the next sale soon after? The Yes of the prospect, either to agree to a meeting, or actually confirming a purchase, is similar to the applause an actor receives on stage after a great performance. Commission is not important in that very moment. It is the acknowledgement of the person selling.

A sale will boost your confidence.

On a side note: How to train not to lose self-confidence
You will find the very same key elements when being out Saturday night trying to get a date with a boy or girl. Don’t give up and show confidence all times.

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The great country of Great Britain is probably the only country in Europe, in where it’s people call continental Europe just “Europe”, forgetting that the UK itself is part of the continent. Understandable, the differences between the island and “the others” seem large. The English are on a different time zone, they drive on the left side of the road, keep the Sterling as currency, and keep closer ties to their former colonies than to their immediate neighbors in Europe.

One big difference between the UK and the rest: The UK is immune against snow and ice. Or at least it seems that way. Although snow and ice was largely responsible for winter chaos in Great Britain during the last few years, it seems that the public doesn’t care to prepare accordingly. A few snow flakes and a cold winter night are responsible for a national shut down of airports and railroads. The media warns of the “Big Freeze”, of somewhat minus 5° Celsius; drama sells.
Great Britain is immune to prepare- and to invest- and therefore can’t compete with other countries within the European community. London’s airports closed down for several days this winter, causing great difficulties for all travelers. The lack of information, not kept promises, let to great disappointment.

Roads are not cleared, major highways are not salted, and people in cars don’t even know what snow tires are. While car owners on the continent must change tires for the winter by law, the English seem to deny their existence.

The UK spent 4.2 Billion British Pounds Sterling (6.5 Billion USD) on building Terminal 5 of London’s airport Heathrow. The London Underground extended the Piccadilly line, building an additional train station, just for the new terminal. And yet, the airport only invested 6 Million GBP in preparation for snow and ice in the winter. That’s a little bit over 0.1 percent.

Wow! Fail to prepare and prepare to fail.

Not just people who planed to travel shook the heads with disbelief, also shop owners and businesses in the airport terminals got financially hurt. People were sleeping on the floor, with no further information given. Other airports on the continent closed as well, but facing much worse weather conditions.

Imagine the situation from a different point of view: A privately run hotel chain with lots of hotels in a city hasn’t bought enough oil for their heating system. This is the third winter in the row they lacked preparation. As a result of running out of fuel, the management decides to turn off the heating and hot water for a couple of days. Shortly the reception of the hotel is packed with people who either want a different room or demand more information when the situation will be resolved. As no one knows how long the turn off period lasts, no information can be given and as a result the hotel is canceling all reservations, including the ones which are already paid.

What will happen to the business?

• How will their guests / customers view and rate the service of the hotel?
• Failing to prepare is one thing, failing inform people when it’s resolved is another.
• Would customers book again next year?
• How much business will they lose?
• In a digital world, how would their word of mouth advertising look like? Word-of-mouth depends on the extent of customer satisfaction with the product or service, and on the degree of its perceived value.

Any private business with such poor management will suffer losses when not being prepared for expected, unexpected situations. As a result people WILL get fired.

In winter, many travelers coming from oversees will avoid flying via London, and rather book flights through other continental European airports like Oslo (not closed for a single day this season so far). Airlines like British Airways might lose a few winter passengers, and money will be shifted away, to other airports outside the big winter island.

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Hey Dude, you might have the best product in the world and you still are not selling? In Monday Morning Sales Meetings you look around you and see other beaming with glory about THEIR sales last week? The worst, deep inside you know that you are are below your OWN expectations?
There are a few and simply reasons, beyond the obvious. Lets assume you are a likable person with personality; you are not dumb and probably have the right working attitude (at least most of the time). You know how to engage prospects, once you have found them, and know how to keep them happy, once you have them as a customer.
One of the biggest reasons why people struggle to reach their business dream is that they have none. They don’t know where they want to be, except that it should be more. They go with the flow, the daily groove, without a plan or strategy for their own professional life.

Own YOUR plan, or you are owned by others (your colleagues are also your competitors and are planning to pass you on THEIR career path).

The theory in Earl Nightingale’s “The Strangest Secret” is about to act and live how you like to become. The fasted race car without a driver will never win the Formula One. A football team which is not training how to play the game will never win the championship. A chess player who is not thinking three steps ahead will find it hard to beat the opponent.

A goal is a dream with a deadline and actions associated on each step of the way. If you want more sales to reach YOUR goal analyze the following:

Also analyze the reverse. Why prospects didn’t buy. Don’t cheat, be honest and answer truthfully (do it in a small dark room by yourself if you have to)

Once you know a few data points you can start formalizing a strategy. Your strategy. What do you need to acquire, what do have to learn or get better with? Did you handle objections in the right way? Did you use some form of sense of urgency?

In sales it is not who you know, but who knows you. Do potential prospects know about you? What do you do to ensure that they do?

QUANTITY and MEASURABLE achievements:

Break down your strategy in small steps. Break it into daily achievements, weekly accomplishments. How many prospects do you need to see in a week, how many referrals can you earn and give? To how many networking events do you have to go in a week?

QUALITY related achievements

Ask your existing clients why they have bought from you. Learn to strengthen your weaknesses, can you improve your sales presentation? Do you need to prepare better to better understand your prospect’s business? How many time wasting tasks were blocking you in seeing more qualified prospects?

The big dream consists of smaller milestones. Formulate milestones and celebrate them when you achieve them. Like in sports, achievements will fuel your desire! Write down your plan, step by step. Formulate your tasks and work on them daily. Have your plan with you, yet better own it!

Very soon into your strategy you will start acting they way you would like to become; it will accelerate your efforts and achievements. Your colleagues will notice, your prospects will notice and your mom and dad will notice. This will come naturally, and is a reflection of your efforts and achievements. Like Earl Nightingale has already foreseen, the fact that take destiny into your own hands will already help you achieving your dreams.

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I am solid believer that I can sell anything to anybody, if this someone only has a need of what I am selling. The hardest part of the sale is to find someone who has the need I can satisfy.

Does this sound familiar to you? Always wanted to meet someone who is buying your full range of products? Ever won the lottery?

Let’s take a look of the need in general. There are two kinds of need – needs with a saturation point and needs driven by greed, jealousy and fear – with no saturation. Luckily for us, but unfortunately for mankind, needs in a B2B environment are the latter one.

Let me show it to you from a different perspective:

Let’s say we run into each other at your favorite bar and I invite you to a shot of alcohol, a beer, glass of champagne or a cocktail. Now I give you the choice: Take 1 glass of whatever appeals to you and be happy; or take 100 glasses of the same, which you have to drink in front my eyes. Unless you are a hopeless alcoholic, it is unlikely that you will drink hundred glasses of whatever I buy you. The pure volume of liquid won’t be easy to handle in the fist place. There is a natural saturation when you are no longer thirsty. Or even worse, once your are hopelessly drunk you pass out half way. Like often said, too much of something great is no longer great. Once the natural need reached it’s saturation, the need is fulfilled.

But if I offer you the choice between 1 golden coin or a hundred golden coins, it is safe & easy to predict that you take the hundred. In fact, you would take a thousand, if you could carry them. There is no limit. Money has no limit. The more we have, the better it seems. In the business world we call it profit.

The need for profit makes the world go around. It is based on greed. It has no saturation and no limit. This need also works in the reverse, the fear of loss. The opposite mechanism – the more we lose the worse it is.

Besides greed and fear another human instinct is often overlooked when studying buying motives – status. At your last class reunion, were comparing yourself and your achievements to the achievements and lives of your class mates? You all had the same dreams and maybe similar starting conditions. However, someone who had been less popular in school became a self made millionaire, while the guy with all the girls made it nowhere.

In a different perspective: No matter how well we do, instead of feeling great, happy and satisfied, we rather change the level of comparison. No longer we look at our class mates, we start comparing ourselves to the entire school, the business community, the country or even globally.

We are constantly comparing, and so are our clients and prospects. Businesses are run by human instincts. Status can also be expressed in shareholder value or market share, which refers back to money and profit.

Greed, fear of loss & status are our friends of finding a NEED.

When presenting the features and benefits of the product you are selling, are you going all the way to the foundation of the core need? Does your offer help saving money (greed)? Does it increase revenue (greed)? Does it prevent losing money (fear)?

Many sales professionals are presenting features.

• „This machine has twice the output“
• „The fuel consumption is only half compared to your current car“
• „You will receive more clicks on your website“
• „The platinum credit card is more exclusive“

and so on.

Don‘t assume that your prospect is smart enough to calculate the benefit to himself – pin point him down to the core need. After all, greed, fear and status make the world go around.

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Sales is easy, once you have the decision maker on the phone. Let‘s say it is easier if you have the right pitch, all information about their business and their situation and know their implied need.

When you spend all day calling people, how many times do you really speak to the person you are looking for? How much time you spend on gate keepers, also known as personal assistant or secretary? How often do you have to explain yourself at their first line of defense (the reception)?

During my years of leading sales people using cold calling as a method of getting appointments or even selling through the phone, we had targets of 6 sales presentations by phone per day. And even out of 6 hours call time, this number was hard to reach.

Until recently.

Due to a replacement of our telephone equipment, we had use mobile phones for a while. While we were calling prospects abroad, where out numbers were not recognized as mobile numbers, there was no difference in getting through to the decision maker. However, when we were calling locally we were able to double the number of sales presentations.

Let me explain the logic behind phone numbers:

• When calling with blocked or withheld number, you give the impression of calling from a call center. There is a reason you don‘t show the number, as you are afraid to be recognized as a sales person. That‘s one reason why the assistant is more skeptical when answering, and is questioning the reason of your call much harder.
• In case you are located in a different city, or state, where your prospect has no dealings in, you also raise suspicion from the first ring.
• Assistants and the reception are trained to handle sales calls. In certain circumstances you almost announce that your call is a sales call.

While calling from a mobile phone, you have the following advantage:

• When you call an important business partner or friend, you might save the number in your mobile phone. It also implies that your „business partner“ has your number stored as well. Not being afraid to show your number, lowers the defense mechanism.
• It is without question that you must know the person by name you are trying to reach. A good story, like calling from a meeting or the airport gets more believable. Asking for direct numbers was twice as successful in our case.
• When using a mobile number, your location can not be pin pointed. You could be any client or business partner, while a landline number with a fixed location is more suspicious.
• Important people use mobile phones for business reasons. A telesales executive usually does not.

I know it is a cost factor not mobile phones, and in many cases you want to avoid being identified (not to get on a black list). In the times of flat rates, it might be worth considering.

While we were more successful in getting through to the decision maker, there also was a downside by showing a mobile number. When using typical sales methods, like sense of urgency, our follow-up calls were easier identified. Trying to reach our prospect 5-10 times per day didn‘t look too good with an identified number.

We had to change from a typical telesales behavior to something more serious. As we couldn‘t call as often, we had to increase the number of leads to balance the approach.

Bottom line: When not behaving like a typical telesales jockey, you will get through to decision makers more frequently. However, when not being prepared, not knowing their situation, and their reasons to listen, your chances getting through again may vary.

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In many mature sales departments you mostly meet the one or the other: The super selling, over achieving sales professional, or the humble but average- or poor performing sales beggar. You might find this statement a little bit too exaggerated – too extreme – but in an environment where the 80/20 rule is present, all shades of grey vanish.

When 20% of the sales professionals generate 80% of the revenue, you are left with a lot of nice people with great character, but lower numbers.

Question: Is sales success making people more aggressive, arrogant, cocky and big headed, or is it the other way around? Are nice and humble people less successful in sales, or do frequent reality checks make you mellow?

One of many answers: Aggressiveness is hatched by management – no one likes sales farmers. It‘s a simple business decision to generate more revenue. Even I have to admit that for reaching my team goals set by my management, I enjoy working with successful sales rock stars, full of energy, optimism – who are making it happen. Unfortunately they are giving a damn about team targets, as their mind is clouded with their personal incentive.

A certain humbleness towards team goals and working as a team, helping others to improve, might lowers revenue on a short term basis, but helps increasing sales on the mid- or long term.

It all boils down to attitude.

A wise man once said: „You can‘t teach happiness, nor attitude“. But you can hire happy sales professionals with great attitude, who are committed to personal- as well as team success alike.

Here are a few ideas how to build a strong sales team, while improving the team spirit, even without countless team building activities outside working hours.

• Hire talented people with great attitude.
• Don‘t hire because of pure sympathy, you will do them no good in the long run.
• Provide group training on a regular basis. Empower your sales people by getting them in front of the group to pass on the wisdom behind their strengths.
• Discuss live objections in dedicated sessions in regular sales meetings. Work together on ideas how to close the sale.
• Team up experienced sales people with newbies. Give out an incentive for the two man team based on joined KPIs.
• Give out a compelling incentive for the entire sales team – not the usual drinks in the bar or pub next door, which they do anyway on Fridays.
• It is difficult to take back paid drinks on a casual friday for punishment. Don‘t let it be a „given“ in the first place.
• In general, combine incentives with something fun and bonding. Don‘t just go with the usual top commission on deals, drinks next door or extra holiday. Be creative!

Of course you can add a lot to that list, and please be welcome to do so in the comments.

Conclusion: As you can hatch aggressiveness on a sales floor, you can also encourage team spirit and humbleness towards team goals. As a sales rock star, don‘t lose your attitude towards your co-workers – to get promoted into sales management you need to shine in people management as well.

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Often I get questions how to approach small businesses the best way. Of course many things depend on the product or services you are selling, but there are key differences to larger corporations, which need to be considered.

The world of an entrepreneur
Many business owners are experts within their specialized field. A lawyer in defending right or wrong in court, a dentist in fixing a rotten root canal, a plumber in fixing the water pipes in your home. As they have their own business, they become more universal. They need to acquire or outsource their book keeping, invoicing, marketing, recruitment, selling etc. Over the time, their business might grow. They will employ a few people who take over the original specialized tasks, while they need to concentrate more on the overall administration, to keep their business afloat. However, they will still think like a lawyer, a dentist or a plumber.

Organizations run by the owner and entrepreneur are different in structure, reporting and decision making in comparison to larger corporations. While in larger organizations you find multi level reporting structures, matrix style or top-down; small businesses really have only two levels: The owner and the people who work for him. Purchasing decisions which require larger investments, are mostly discussed with the unofficial management team – the family and friends of the owner.

While you need the buying of the functional decision maker and the budget holder in larger corporations, you need the decision maker – the business owner – and the hidden influencers when selling to an SME.

Life on the border line
The entrepreneur is living the life of a risk taker. Wrong decisions and unseen circumstances may lead to financial disaster. A business owner is risking his money and his life to survive and to make a living. They are cautious by default. One of the most common objections are value based. They simply don‘t see a need to change anything if things are running smoothly. A business owner values relationships and good service. They buy from people they know – mostly local from other business owners within their local reach. Every purchase has the element of security, knowing that they get the same service as they provide to their customers. Business owners are price sensible, their budget is small in comparison to large corporates. “Bang for the buck”, is just as crucial to them as it is to the customers who are end users. In fact, their decision making is similar.

How to approach the business owner
Your first contact with the business owner should always have the purpose to gather more information. Sometimes these information are obvious when visiting their business. They often have no sophisticated web presence to gather the information without personal interaction. Although with experience you can vaguely assume their situation and potential need by knowing a few basic information (industry, location, people, revenue).

But don‘t be foolish – you can never predict the decision making by assuming!

• Call the business owner, prove creditability of yourself, gather information about their situation, estimate need, create interest, build rapport and arrange an appointment for a personal visit.

You might discuss potential need over the phone, but never start selling on the first call!

• Send the business owner an email or note by post to confirm the appointment and send him basic information how you can help him to generate more profit by reducing costs, increasing revenue, or saving time. Don‘t send powerpoint presentations or too much collateral, which are not going to be read or fully understood anyway.
• At the meeting, build rapport and relationship right from the beginning. A business owner buys YOU more than a big corporate does. Adjust your presentation according his need. Think local. Think like a business owner. Establish their buying motive, potential upcoming objections, and the decision making process (suggest to discuss together in a group with mom, dad or any family member who might be influencing the decision).

Remember the wisdom of Like, Believe, Confidence and Trust. A potential client must first like you, before he believes your words, has confidence in you and finally trusts you. Without Like there will never be Trust. That is especially true for small business owners. Or would you buy your 100,000 Dollar BMW from someone you can‘t relate to?

• Dress appropriately. Don‘t wear your Armani suit when visiting a plumber. Dress business like without being overdressed. Mirror as much as possible.
• Provide exceptional service, before, during and after a purchase. Be reachable all the time. Don‘t avoid calls in case of complaints or problems.

Your best advertisement is what your customers tell their friends and other business owners behind your back. Especially small business owners tend to give referrals or take referrals from a trusted source. Again, they trust people they know and like. You will experience true word-of-mouth advertisement, as they tend to tell others if your service has been great. Beware, they tend to tell everyone and their dog, if your service didn’t deliver. Take it as a chance, to be rewarded to great salesmenship.

The small business owner ecosystem – think local!
Sales is a smart numbers game. The more you can put in, the more will come out. Of course your prospects must be qualified first.

In case you have a dedicated small area, you can source all business owners one by one. However, by speaking and networking at association meetings, conferences and public gatherings you can address a larger audience and generate a higher return in interest.

When I was working for BMW, selling high value cars, I sold to cafes, bars, restaurants and meeting points (like a hair dressing studio) for business owners first. Once I delivered their new car, I made sure that as many friends and family were present to share their joy and excitement. I made sure I visited them, had coffee or lunch in their restaurant and recommended them to my other clients. I not just retained clients, I laid the foundation for a never ending pipeline of referrals. By being part of their ecosystem, I participated in getting business as well.

What are your best ways to sell to small business owners? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section.

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