Rev Up Revenue Step 4: Sell More

Welcome back to Rev Up Your Revenue Step #4: Sell More

Now that you have a goal, what’s next? It’s time to engage with potential clients in a sales conversation. If you are feeling nervous now that I’ve mentioned the word sales, you might want to spend some time looking at your own mindset around the ideas of sales. Here is a post on how your mindset can sabotage sales.

If sales isn’t your love language and you aren’t making many sales, here are the most common problems:

Is your conversation all about you and not the client? Notice it is called a sales conversation not a sales dialogue. If you talk mostly about yourself, why you got into the business, what the business has done for you, what you love about the business, it may seem like you are just sharing your enthusiasm, but to establish rapport with someone you must establish an emotional connection with their wants and needs, not yours. When you talk about yourself, your customer feels sold to. When you ask about them and what they want, they feel understood.  Ask yourself: What is the problem, need or desire that my client is trying to solve? How does my client feel about the problem or need? If you walk away and can’t remember anything you learned about the client, their problems, their frustrations, their goals, and dreams, you’ve missed the mark.

Are you selling the airplane or the destination? Are you spending your time talking about the product, its benefits, its unique features, how it compares to other more inferior products or services? Or are you sharing how it can solve their problems and fulfill their wants and needs? Notice that you have to know what they are looking for in order to take this next step and that is why you must be curious about them in the previous step. No one buys an airline ticket so they can sit on the plane cheek to cheek with a stranger and eat bad food for hours. They buy the ticket because it gets them where they want to go. They are buying the result or the destination. Ask yourself: What does my ideal client want and how does my product or service solve that problem or meet that need? What is their destination and how can I get them there?

Are you ASKING for the sale… or just hoping THEY will? Once you have listened to the problem or desire that your client is trying to solve and once you are convinced that you have a product or service that could help them, it’s time to ask for the sale. This means making it obvious that you are in the business of selling something. This is where many of us, especially those of us who fear sounding manipulative or salesy lose our customers and consequently the sale. We sit back and wait… for the email, for the phone call  or the tap on the shoulder. Meanwhile, our potential customers are missing out on a solution as they wait for us to show them the way. If you have not directly asked for the sale, then you are not just cheating yourself out of business. You are also cheating the customer out of a solution to their problem. Ask yourself: Have I clearly helped my client to see how my product or service can help them? Have I clearly identified the consequences of not using my product or service? Have I asked for the sale?

You can sell more so you can serve more and have a bigger impact, if you focus on the client’s problem or desire, share how your product solves their problem and last but not least, ASK FOR THE SALE.