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What Does a Sales Conversation Sound Like?

A sales conversation is the exchange between you and a prospective client where you find out what the client needs, explain what you offer, and see if there’s a match between you. It’s neither a lecture nor arm-twisting; it’s a discussion between peers about an arrangement that will serve you both.

Here’s what a conversation like this sounds like in real life, with a few asides to note what you might learn from it.

Accountant Meg: Hi, Jack, this is Meg Jones, the small business accountant. How are you today? (Meg re-identifies herself to Jack. She also doesn’t launch right into a lengthy speech.)

Prospective Client Jack: I’m good, but a little busy right now.

Meg: I hope “busy” is good news for you. Do you have just a few minutes to talk about us working together? Last time we spoke you said you’d like to explore that idea. (She acknowledges Jack’s situation, but doesn’t just end the call. She asks permission to continue, and reminds him of a reason he may want to.)

Come in from the Cold: Warm Up Your Marketing

by C.J. Hayden | Sales Conversations

Do you feel uncomfortable trying to market your business to strangers? Most of us do. Making cold calls, knocking on doors, or attending networking mixers where you don’t know a soul can be challenging or even painful. Happily, cold approaches like these are not all there is to marketing. In fact, you may never need to use them at all.

Perhaps you already know this, and have been marketing your business in other ways. For example, launching a website, exhibiting at trade shows, running pay-per-click ads, distributing flyers, sending emails and letters to people who don’t know you, or posting promos on social media. But all of those approaches are “cold” as well, and many of them can be expensive.

Whenever you are trying to start a marketing conversation with a stranger — with no introduction, referral, or shared connection to help you — it’s a cold approach, whether you make it on the phone, in a room, by mail, or online. And cold approaches, across the board, are less effective than warm ones.

Watch Out for Time-Wasting Prospects

by C.J. Hayden | Sales Conversations

You’ve got a likely prospect taking your calls and asking you questions. It seems like you’re home free, and a sale should be imminent. But hold the phone. The calls, emails, and questions continue. Maybe a meeting or two as well. Time passes, and the sale seems no closer than before. Welcome to the world of time-wasting prospects.

Here are four kinds of prospects to be on the lookout for, and six ideas about what to do when you find them.

1. Looky-Loos
Looky-loo prospects are the ones who are “just looking,” although they often don’t reveal that important fact. They have no real intent to buy, at least not now. They will browse your website and call or email with a dozen questions, just out of curiosity. If you do business in a public office, hold open houses, or give free demonstrations, they will stop in and take up your time.

Are You Offering a Commodity or a Unique Solution?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

As a self-employed professional, the last thing you want is for clients to perceive you as a commodity. Commodities are products or services that are considered to be basically the same no matter who provides them. When your target audience thinks of you as just another financial planner, graphic designer, life coach, personal trainer, or psychotherapist, you must work far too hard simply to get them to remember you until they need you.

Here are five ways you can position the solution that you offer as distinctive enough to attract and hold your prospective clients’ attention, AND convince them that your solution is the one they need.

Are You Marketing the Right Stuff?

by C.J. Hayden | Success Ingredients & Tools

Jan is a graphic designer who was always struggling to find good clients. “I could find plenty of people who needed my services,” she recalls, “but they thought my rates were too high. I either ended up agreeing to work for less, or they found someone else. And then when I did get the job, they took forever to pay me.”

Like many graphic designers, Jan’s marketing emphasized her business identity work — creating a company’s logo, business cards, and other collateral, with matching design elements. Her primary audience was new businesses who were just getting started. But then Jan had a brainstorm.

“I realized that the clients I was marketing to were people who didn’t have enough money to pay me,” says Jan. “They were startups with tight budgets. And since they hadn’t been in business long, they didn’t place much value on working with an experienced, high-quality designer. They were just looking for the lowest price.”

Is Your Marketing Stuck for Words?

by C.J. Hayden | Success Ingredients & Tools

Many aspects of business are driven by numbers, but marketing often seems to be all about words. Whether it’s naming your business or brand, coming up with a tag line, or writing copy for your website, you probably spend a big chunk of your marketing time trying to find just the right words to use.

While you’re busy hunting for the perfect words, your business cards don’t get printed, your web copy doesn’t get posted, and your marketing emails don’t get sent. When you don’t have adequate marketing tools in place, you don’t market. No marketing; no clients. And all for the want of a few good words!

For major projects like a website, brochure, or postal direct mail campaign, hiring a copywriter may be a wise investment. But there are also steps you can take to improve your own ability to communicate about your business in writing. Here are four strategies you can use to break your marketing writer’s block without breaking the bank:

Your Market Niche: an Essential Key to Success

by C.J. Hayden | Success Ingredients & Tools

How important is it that you have a clearly defined market niche for your professional services? Can’t you simply make yourself available to work for anyone who might need you? Doesn’t having a niche limit you to serving only a small portion of possible clients? Why would you want to rule out any possible sources of business? Discovering the answers to these questions can have a powerful impact on the success or failure of your business.

When you have a market niche, it defines either your target market — who you wish to target as prospective clients -– or your professional specialty –- the services you specialize in providing within the broader scope of your profession. The most effective niches define both these elements.

Marketing and Sales and Fear. Oh My!

by Kristine Carey | Fear & Resistance

Me: How about calling the buyers directly?
Client: That’s someone else’s job.
Me: What about meeting a colleague for lunch?
Client: They already know me; not sure how that’ll help.
Me: Maybe you could get in touch with your current clients, and connect with them more deeply?
Client: They already hear from me once a month.
Me: That’s a generic message crafted by someone else, right?
Client: Yes.
Me: Perhaps something from you personally would help foster greater loyalty; subtly encourage them to stay around longer?
Client: Maybe. I’m not sure…..

This is how a recent conversation went with a client.

Where Do You Stop in Your Marketing?

by C.J. Hayden | Fear & Resistance

I think most of my readers work pretty hard at marketing themselves. It may seem like you are always going, going, going. But I find that for many entrepreneurs, there’s a point where they stop -– a sticking place that always seems to trip them up, or they never seem to be able to get past.

For my client Sally, it was follow-up calls and emails. Sally always seemed to have an overflowing pipeline of prospects and potential referral sources. She had plenty of people to connect with about her business, to see if they’d like to explore becoming clients or discuss whether they would consider referring their contacts to her. But she never seemed to be able to reach out to these folks.

Your Marketing: One-to-One or One-to-Many?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

It seems like there’s a new way to market your business appearing every five minutes here in the 21st century. How can self-employed professionals know which marketing methods will make the most sense for them?

When evaluating possible ways to market your business, it can help significantly to apply a quick test — is the marketing method you’re considering “one-to-one” or “one-to many?” Here’s how they’re different.

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