Friday, May 02, 2008

Five Tips for Personal Selling to SB

How do you as an individual sell to the elusive small-biz market? Get out there and meet them! With entrepreneurs, it's all about the relationship.

Five top tips:

1. Go where the entrepreneurs are. Be seen as part of their community (e.g., through involvement in associations such as CAFE, TEC, EO, CATA, the CofC, etc.) If you don't know what those terms stand for, you have a chunk of catching up to do.

2. At networking functions, know whom you want to meet. Study the membership or guest lists to know who's whom. Arrange an introduction if possible, from a trusted mutual friend. And bring lots of business cards.

3. STOP SELLING! Ask good questions and listen: “Tell me about your business.” “What kinds of problems have you run into?” "What got you through that?"

4. Practice using the phrase, “How can I help you?”

5. When it’s your turn to talk, don’t brag about your expertise and experience. Tell stories that illustrate your experience and demonstrate the results you have achieved for your clients. (Make sure they’re pertinent!) Include vivid images and a happy ending.
Practice these stories in advance to make them as powerful (and as brief) as possible.

Simple as that!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

These are all great tips. I especially agree with tip #3.

dattrax said...

I recently got advice from a business analyst that said that my website materials projected humble and unassuming and that I needed to throw that out and take on a bold persona of Expert and the Best, etc. I thought that my content spoke for itself because I talk about things on my site that no company in the same industry is willing to discuss. What's your opinion on this? Your posts are fantastic by the way.

Michael said...

Really useful tips thanks for sharing with us...

Regards
Business News

badabing said...

hi Rick,

great blog, appreciate your writeup with the Canadian perspective, would you mind giving me the links to CAFE, TEC, EO, CATA, the CofC.

Yeah i know lots of catching up to ;).

cheers

Mahmood Ali said...

Business card is the important tool of any business...
Plastic Card
Membership card printing

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