Big business muckity-mucks often underestimate the value of their salespeople. Small Business owners typically think they can handle sales themselves. Both are wrong. Neither understands that selling is its own business!
If you sell for a living, and haven’t considered yourself a small business owner, you are just as mistaken.
Regardless of what others may think, when you get up in the morning and head off to your pipeline appointments, you are viewed and thought of by customers and prospects AS the business you represent. You ARE the company in their eyes. And that applies equally to selling a one-man-band or the services of a mega-multi-national corporation.
It’s easy to lose track of your SELF in the process of representing others and you must fight this “mind-drift” if you are to survive and thrive in today’s marketplace. Start by pinching yourself before every encounter, by taking a deep breath and remembering that you’re in business for your SELF.
Of course if you’re a true professional, or aspire to be, you already know you can only sell your SELF by listening hard, by putting your SELF in the prospect’s shoes, by focusing on benefits, and by being 100% honest 100% of the time — “To your own SELF be true” if you like slogans..
Keep careful records. Do the paperwork and data entry with vigor because every piece of paper or computer entry related to every sales call is a piece of bridge that will bring the business you run for your SELF a little closer to the financial success and goal achievement rewards waiting for you.
Constantly innovate. Rebuild, revise, redirect, re-examine, re-explore, re-visit, re-think. Start with the attitude that every thing you do every day can be done better, more efficiently, more effectively, more productively. CHUNK IT UP! Don’t overwhelm your SELF with too much at once. Start with top priorities of what can be the most immediately beneficial.
Constantly add value to the products and services you represent. It doesn’t mean you have to go “boss-begging” or re-inventing your wares. And it doesn’t have to be expensive.
Good small business owners are also good at managing their finances, especially cashflow. I know one industrial rep that passes out free online flower arrangement and iTune credits to customers for their families. Another makes charitable donations in the customer’s name.
And constantly promote your small business. Really top sales pros I know have their own websites and participate heavily in social networking. It pays. It pays back many times over to do it, to keep it active, to include it on your business card and in your spiel. An educational site related to what you’re doing becomes a value-added situation in and of itself.
Whatever you sell, make it a daily habit to inventory and adjust your SELF because YOU are your own small business!
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