Advice To Business Owners Who Hate Sales (By A Business Owner)
You mean we have to market our business and ask for the sale?
Advice To Business Owners
On a daily basis I am amazed by people in business that hate—really, truly despise—sales and marketing, yet scratch their head and wonder why they are not doing better in their business.
It's like a vegan working for a bacon company and wondering why they're not passionate about their job!
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In 2008 we said goodbye to the "stupid money" forever. (Here we are at the end of 2016 and it's still tight out there, isn't it?)
Business won't just come to you anymore. The marketing landscape has changed. The economy has changed. However, the consumer HAS NOT changed.
Sure, their surfing and shopping and comparison shopping has changed along with their ability to light you up online if you treat them poorly but the underlying nature of the human consumer has not changed since the advent of Western Civilization, if not longer.
What is that common thread found in all of your prospects - at least the ones you want:
Community. A sense of belonging. A desire to be accepted and acknowledged as special and understood.
It's written in our DNA. God, Himself, is community ("Let us make man in our image," Gen 1:26). And God saw it was not good for man to be alone.
Your customers are afraid of being alone. Sure, some want to appear to standout by being an early-adopter or trend-setter but all they're really trying to do is be a part of that fashionable, visionary community.
So help your customers and clients belong.
This does not require "hard-sells" or gimmicky marketing. It just requires consistent, honest, meaningful efforts to connect, to educate, to inform, to sooth, to calm, to encourage your customers that what you offer will help them scratch the itch in that hard-to-reach spot that they yearn to go away.
But, Wes. My business is different. I sell to the government. I sell to Fortune 100 companies. I sell to hard-to-please moms. I sell to rough-and-gruff bikers. I sell to (insert your own whining excuse.)"
What do all of these people have in common?
A mother and a father.
The need to wear clothes and eat every day.
The need to laugh more and worry less.
A sense of inadequacy about something (even Donald Trump hates his hair!)
The desire to be healthier. A longing to be loved.
Begin seeing your clients and customers as people instead of "seats or eyeballs or end-users or consumers. (They) are human beings—and (their) reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.” — From “The Cluetrain Manifesto"
As soon as you begin speaking and connecting with people as people and you stick with it your sales will grow.
If you'd like a little help fill out the short form here and let's talk.
You can do it.
Happy New Year.
Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.
