This is myself (Edward Zia) pictured with Craig Mowbray of Greater Building Society in Wollongong. A great guy who totally knows how to sell. The dedication of this article goes to him!
Personal Selling as a Small Business Owner & Entrepreneur are one of they key profitable skills to success. You can have the best Logo, Best Business Cards, Be Pumping out the Best Facebook / Online Campaigns – however, if you cannot SELL and get someone to agree to use your Services / Products you probably will be far from a “Happy Camper”.
There is often quite a lot of debate between “Marketing” vs. “Sales” people as to which is better and what is required. To me, it’s like debating whether the hand is better than the eye – they are two very different areas of business that you really want to effectively work hand in hand with each other.
In very simple terms, to me “Marketing” is more getting the business right and getting people know about you – and “Sales” is more the actual act of getting them to make a “Purchase”. As a Marketing Mentor, many hire me to help teach them effective selling skills & confidence in that regard (which is a good break sometimes from the heavy Online Facebook, Newsletter Work and the like I do quite often).
In my Premium Online Course “The Awesome Marketing Vault by Edward Zia”, Module 9 is all about Personal Selling and I love it.
To help you wonderful people out there, I wanted to give you some high level tips on Personal Selling that have helped me and hundreds of my clients totally kick butt:
1. Be in Contact with People: Gone are the days of just meeting people as a one off, using a script and getting them to buy. You need to generally know people for a while so the relationship is there. This may be your “Marketing” helping out too – for example, you may meet them several times at a Networking Event, or lets say they are following you on Facebook for 3 months. Either Way, there is a “Relationship” context there which helps!
2. Get Across What You Do: It’s really important that before people meet you and obviously when you are speaking with them, they know what you do. Yes, you are an Accountant or a Coach and that’s obvious, but what does that mean exactly? As an Accountant you may help them with their tax and give them business mentoring advice and as a Coach you may help them with their Mindset and Success for example – get across the benefits of your service!
3. Be Meeting People Face to Face: Not always possible, however it is mostly the recommended approach. If you say get a Phone Call, an Email Lead, you speak to someone at a Networking Event or whatever – you want to be selling Face to Face if you can help it. It may be over a kind coffee, in your office, their office or whatever – you want to meet, connect, get to know them and build your working relationship the right way from day one.
4. Ask Questions, Find Problems, Offer Honest Solutions: This is an artform which I like to cover in massive detail and you want to really understand the issue, offer them help and be there for them. What I do personally is exactly that – I will meet someone, I will often give them an hour of free advice, solve some of their problems, prove I know what I am doing and then it will help “Demonstrate” myself to them so they hire me. Yay!
5. Ask to Get Started / Follow Up: It all depends on the nature of your business. It may take several meetings in your case (lets say you are a Lender or Mortgage Broker) or you can ask if they want to get started on the spot. A good way I like to put it is basically ask them if they have any more questions and when they run out and seem happy, I would say “We can get started right away if you like?” – Regardless of how you put it, it’s great to ask to get started.
6. Do the Numbers / Meetings: Most people (me included) get a 20 – 30% conversion rate in their selling. Basically 1 out of 5 quite often. In my case, let’s say I need to pick up 4 x more clients. Thats 20 meetings. So boy, I better get to work! This is where your whole Networking and Marketing Strategy kicks in (see my other articles and the Awesome Marketing Vault by Edward Zia for more information on this whole area of itself).
7. Rejection is Awesome and I LOVE IT: As you only get say 1 out of 5 Sales, this means you will get rejected 80% of the time. Yay! It takes time, it’s hard but please push yourself and get used to it. All part of being successful!
In addition to these 7 points, DO IT ALL THE TIME. Repetition is the mother of success in this area (and probably most areas in life). I trust these tips & insights help you out big time and if you need a hand with your selling, drop me a line anytime wonderful people!
About the Author & The Awesome Marketing Vault by Edward Zia:
Edward Zia is a Marketing Mentor, Blogger & Commentator based in Sydney, Australia. He has worked with hundreds of Private Clients and Teaches Cutting Edge Sales & Marketing Strategies to Awesome Small Business Owners. He loves being contacted by wonderful Entrepreneurs and also has his Premium Online Community “The Awesome Marketing Vault” which is a perfect place for anyone to get started in making learning Profitable, Realistic & Effective Ideas. >> Learn More About It Here!
Edward also thinks you are wonderful too for reading his articles x x
4 Responses
You raise some excellent points here Edward. I found that marketing, especially internet marketing can become an obsessive pursuit.
There is a kind of a “glam” side to it you know, pretty pictures, flashy designs, catchy logos, well crafted words and so on.
It is easy to get caught up in marketing and to forget that sales are what will keep the business running.
The selling side of the business is something altogether different, this is where the fear creeps in. And though there is no real danger, fear of rejection can become an insidious nemesis.
A well known sales trainer once alluded to the trials of soldiers who got out of the trenches to charge toward the enemy knowing that death was very likely. He compared the fear of sudden death to the fear of getting rejected and made a point that fear of rejection fades into insignificance.
A “Sales Bootcamp” where the main objective is to toughen up to face rejection, experience it and keep moving forward therefore becomes an indispensable part of any sales training course.
I actually think you cannot be trained to “Overcome Rejection”.
The reason being is that I attended so many courses to do that and I FOUND that only by doing it all the time and overcoming it on your own mind is the answer. For me, I used to have massive issues with rejection and I just got over it over time and loved it 🙂
Hi Edward,
Love what you explained the difference between marketing and sales. Many business people I know rely too heavily on email marketing and underestimated the power of real human connection through face-to-face when we can also pick up the body language as well.
I totally agree with you about the power of asking for the sale. Thank you for sharing this brilliant line – “We can get started right away if you like?” One line that I use a lot is “Sounds like you are ready to get started…” The silence after this line is more powerful than most people think!
Awesome training material in your vault! Thanks for sharing, Edward!
Viola Tam – The Business Mum
You rock Viola Tam and thank you. Appreciate all your comments and you totally rock and it’s brilliant.
Even though I get paid to teach Online, I am THE FIRST TO SAY the Real World shall always prevail! Go Face to Face Selling 🙂