Act Like a Powerful Business Leader

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Don’t act like a saleperson. Think like a business owner, and focus intensely on what they care about. Learn how to speak their language so you can persuade them to buy using the various terms and conceprs they are familiar with.

Your Main Target Is Business Owners

A business owner doesn’t really care whether what you have to sell is tax deductible. Nor does he or she lose any sleep over whether or not you make your sales quota for the month. And you can guarantee anyone you’re trying to sell has alreayd entertained a number of sales hotshots who promised to “help your business,” “save you money” or “make your life easier.” These are all the old and tired cliches high-pressure manipulators have used since the beginning of commerce.

The Three Things Business Owners Care about Most

1. Increasing revenues
2. Decreasing expenses
3. Increasing efficiency

Increasing revenues: Every company wants to make more money, and the easiest way to achieve that is to sell more products and services. Business owners are always looking for more sales.

Decreasing expenses─Everyone wants to cut costs, but not at the expense of sales. Most business expenses generate a positive return on investment. Business owners don’t want to cut costs if that will aut revenues, but they are interested in ideas that increase their return on investment.

Increasing efficiency─All companies are trying to boost their efficiency so as to enhance their bottom line profitability. Efficiency is what allows a company to grow, and business owners spend lots of time working in this area. However, when talking about efficiency,concrete facts and numbers are required, not glib or vague promises made by the average salesperson who states: “We can save you money.”

Profit Is the Key

The typical salesperson will come into a business chock full of ideas about how he or she can help the company if they will just buy what is on offer. Business owners have heard this so many times before their eyes will just glaze over. Instead, you should go in and center your discussions on one key area: “profit justification.” In simple terms, this means how much money they will make by using what you have to offer. If you can show them your offering will not only pay for itself withina short time frame, but then also make more money for them in the future, you’ll be sure to have their attention.

Business owners are looking for specifics. That means you have to find out on advance enough information about the company so that what you discuss will already be tailored to their actual needs. Or alternatively, you’ll need to persuade them to buy in a two-step sequence where you gather facts on the first visit and then give them a concrete proposal on the second.

If what you have to offer can genuinely justify itself and then become a future source of revenue once it is paid off, then you don’t really have to do any selling at all. The business owner will be keen to buy because your produce or service will stand on its own merits.

Do Away with Cold Calling

Acting like a business leader also explains why you don’t cold call to try and drum up more sales. In simple terms, cold calling is a very ineffcient use of your time. If you were to invest the same amount of time previously dedicated to cold calling into self-maketing that establishes you as the clear leader in your field, you’ll always come off better.

Cold calling for business is ineffective because:

It’s not something well-known and reputable businesspeople need to do.

It dilutes rather than strengthens your personal credibility.

It’s common knowledge that the best people in any field have no need to cold call. This, if you do it, you’re starting from a perceived position of weakness in your prospective customer’s mind.

Instead of coming across as a business equal with superior know-how and skills, you position yourself as someone who has an inferior track record.

When you cold call, you look more desperate than successful.

You waste lots of time speaking with people who are not qualified or able to buy what you have to offer.

Many generations of salespeople were brought up on the concept that sales is a numbers game and you simply have to pay your dues by going out and cold calling until you meet someone who will be interaested in buying. That is a complete fallacy. If you’re doing something unproductive, it is sheer madness to increase the amount of time you allocate to that activity. All you end up doing is devoting a larger pro-protion of your time to a nonproductive activity.

How to Think and Act like a Business Owner

Read some basic finance and accounting books─to learn about business finance, accounting and cash flow. Get familiar with these concepts, because that’s what owners think about all day every day.

Focus on ROI─Package all your produce or service benefits in terms of return on investment.

Sing the praises of your offerings─Get very familiar with showing people how what you offer increases revenues, decreases expenses or enhance efficiency. Be able to make and discuss these points with specific, not generalities.