An entrepreneur takes on financial risk when they set up a business, in the hope of making a profit. Their goal – financial freedom – means delivering a product or service that can ultimately be delivered without their involvement. That means the entrepreneur needs a sales process that generates new revenue without their involvement. A great starting point is to look at how to sell more right now, then build a sales machine to create financial freedom as the business grows.
So, where do you start when it comes to creating more revenue through selling better?
Make time to do it
Business leaders and entrepreneurs often have pretty good sales skills to start with. They genuinely care about their business. Also, having either founded the company or been an early driver of its success, their enthusiasm for the product or service they offer transfers well when they talk to people (my favourite definition of sales is ‘the transfer of enthusiasm’).
However, the common trap that too many fall into is this: not spending enough time transferring their enthusiasm through having enough sales conversations with people. It’s easily done. After all, leading a business carries many duties. It’s incredibly important to dedicate enough time each day, week and month to sell. That’s the first point.
Understand what sales is (and what it isn’t)
Next, entrepreneurs need a true understanding of what sales is. Too often, we see sales as talking at people, of forcing a product or service onto them. That leads to one of two likely results:
~Novel Serialisation: Heavens Fire~
- Either you talk at people and it fails, as that’s not how people like to be sold to
- You don’t want to force something onto people, so you don’t actually do any selling.
Sales is not about forcing people to buy. Sales is about helping people make good buying decisions. And you do that by taking time to understand their needs. At the heart of sales then is a mission: The Search for Truth.
Searching for truth
By asking questions, you can uncover the truth and build an understanding of someone’s situation and their needs. If, once you understand them, you think you can help, then you can explain how. Through your advice, guidance and expertise, you want to build trust in what you offer. Sales happen when Need and Trust come together, and that starts with a search for truth.
When you focus on searching for truth to find needs, one of the first things that happens is you stop talking at people and start listening to them. You become curious about other people and their needs. You’re better company because you’re showing interest in other people rather than talking about yourself.
If you use this at networking events, you’ll find them much less intimidating, as the mindset shifts: you’re there to ask people questions rather than to sell to them. Not only that, but more people will remember you. The point at all sales events like networking is not to sell anything; it’s to create enough interest for people to want to speak to you again.
Identify your audience – get it down to the most specific profile you can
It’s common to build an early client list from friends, family and contacts. That’s fine as you start but it tends to create a rather bizarre and varied client profile. To start increasing sales, you need to speak to more people. However, you simply won’t have time to speak to everyone (even if you kid yourself that you can genuinely sell your product or service to anyone – which you can’t!).
Bearing in mind how long it can take to grow sales figures, and how much skill is involved in doing so, it makes sense to identify your ideal client profile. Once you have a clear idea on that, you can work out how to access those ideal clients.
Make sure, once you have this profile in mind, that you consider why they might buy from you and how. You should sell to match people’s reasons for buying and their process for buying. This means you make it easier for them to buy and, therefore, more likely to do it.
Don’t let ambition overtake you at this stage. You don’t need thousands of your ideal clients to buy straightaway. Can you find 25? Even 10 and start with them? You’ll learn more about how to sell well to your ideal clients by actually selling to a few of them and engaging sufficiently to win their trust, rather than having hundreds of brief and unsuccessful interactions with too many people.
Build a sales process and structure
When the time comes to start scaling up your sales (either you and fellow leaders selling more or building a sales team), you’ll be able to do it much more effectively if you’ve developed a sales process. You need to know how you identify and contact potential clients, then move them through the buying process.
You also need to have a consistent structure to your sales conversations. Too many people think that every sales conversation is different because every client is different. That’s nonsense. Yes, each client is different, but most sales conversations will be very similar:
- You’ll mostly ask the same questions
- You’ll describe what your company offers in a very similar way each time
- The same elements of your products and services will be mentioned again and again
Preparation and structure will give you the platform to sell more successfully more consistently.
Any senior sales manager or director or salesperson you bring in will be able to increase sales much more quickly if you already have your sales process and structure in place. Don’t employ them to create your process and structure; employ them to deliver and improve them.
As you scale the revenue in your business and grow the sales team, it’s critical to have good data. A good CRM that tracks the source of your sales, the length of your sales process, the main blocks in your process and the key reasons clients buy will help you make better decisions based on better data.
You will not achieve the freedom to take revenue from your business without giving all your time to your business unless or until you build a predictable sales process that operates effectively without your day-to-day involvement. That’s the key to unlocking financial freedom as an entrepreneur. Are you ready to turn that key?
By Paul Owen, Sales Talent
Author bio:
Paul founded his firm – Sales Talent – in London back in 2011. In the decade since, he has helped well over 10,000 people improve their sales skills through his consultancy, training services and podcast. He has delivered seminars at 40+ universities and became an Amazon Bestseller and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year 2018 when he published his book, Secret Skill, Hidden Career.
