You’ve already done the hard work of finding your prospect. You’ve reached out to them. You’ve done your homework to qualify them. You’ve asked about their needs. You’ve confirmed their ability to purchase. You’ve identified the decision makers, and brought them in on the discussion. You’ve answered their questions, discussed their business case, and presented your recommendation.
Now for the moment of truth: The close. Continue reading
It goes without saying that your first meeting (or appointment) with a prospect is important. This isn’t just some lead you’ve cold called. This is someone who has made it through that all-important first step in the sales motion, and who has at least a fair chance of becoming a client or paying customer.
During the course of that first conversation, you’ve concluded that they could be a great fit for your product or service. Not only does it seem that they have a bona fide need for what you’re offering, but you believe they also have the ability to buy. They’re a truly qualified prospect. Now it’s time to meet with them to confirm your suspicions. Continue reading
In my previous post, I sketched in the basic steps that make up the sales process. Turning those steps into a repeatable process that can scale with your business needs isn’t as complicated as you might think. It’s a linear, straightforward system, often fittingly called a sales pipeline.
Much like the sales process itself, a sales pipeline is best looked at as a series of individual stages, each with a specific purpose. You can also think of it as a series of filters, each of which is designed to ensure that only the best-fitting prospects make it to the next stage. To accomplish this, each stage is defined by a series of rules and criteria. These rules define what a legitimate sales opportunity looks like. Continue reading
Every company, large and small, needs to understand the sales business. Sales can be intimidating, and it’s no surprise that it’s often given the lowest priority when a business is just starting out. From my perspective, however, sales is also an absolute must-have skill for every entrepreneur.
Too many folks miss the opportunity to apply the same level of professionalism and structure to sales that they do to the other functional areas of their business. It should be at least as important to your business as areas like HR, finance and accounting, product development or production. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the lack of a strong sales structure can be a huge roadblock when it comes to things like attracting investors. Continue reading
In my work as a business coach and mentor to early stage companies, I get to meet and work with a ton of great folks. Their businesses couldn’t be more different from one another, from the kinds of products and services they offer to the sizes of their staff and their target markets. There’s a huge amount of diversity in my work, but there’s also some common threads.
One of those common threads are the mistakes. This incredible collection of entrepreneurs, owners and executives I serve all seem to have the same blind spots when it comes to the business of sales. What is that blind spot? They don’t give their sales the same level of attention and focus that they give other areas of their businesses. Continue reading
Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76657755@N04/
After talking with the founders, a husband-and-wife team, I realized the company had good potential for growth. They have great products, they had done their homework, good traction, and they were both dedicated to making their company succeed. But everything wasn’t perfect. They wanted to grow the company, and they needed money to pay for that growth. Continue reading
Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76657755@N04/
I’ll sit down with these entrepreneurs and managers to talk about their long-term strategies and growth plans, and I hear something like this: “We’ve got a great product. It’s going to change the world. But we just can’t get it off the ground, so we need a bunch of money so we can buy all the things we need to be successful.” Continue reading
While securing financial, knowledge and relationship capital is the biggest and most immediate challenge most entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses face, it is by no means the only challenge. A close second is gaining traction.
What exactly is traction? It’s basically all the things that help you sell more of your products or services. The more traction you have, the more momentum your business has. The more momentum your business has, the more viable it is and attractive it becomes to outside investors.
For an early stage company, gaining traction is really about building your sales. There are other kinds of traction that will become important later on, but for a business that’s just starting out, traction and sales are effectively the same thing. And there’s a good reason that these two concepts are connected. Cash is king. Continue reading
Every small business, startup and entrepreneur I’ve worked with has run into the same two challenges as they have grown. These factors come into play regardless of the market, the industry, the nature of the business, and the business model. What are they? The need for outside capital, and the need to gain more traction.
To put this in non-business terms: Every business eventually needs more resources to support their growth; and they need the ability to sell more of their stuff. Let’s break these concepts down a little.
Capital is the number one priority for growing your business. Too often, it’s thought of as a one-trick pony. Capital isn’t simply a financial investment. Capital can also be knowledge and key relationships, for instance. That kind of capital can be much more valuable than someone just writing you a check. Continue reading
A few years ago, I came to a really important crossroads in my life. I had successfully launched a new company, and it was growing rapidly. Things were going really well by all accounts. But at the same time, I was terribly unsettled, and I didn’t know why.
I don’t do well with being unsettled. Something was nagging at me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. So I did some really serious soul-searching, and I came to a realization that surprised me. Just having a successful business wasn’t enough. If I wanted to be truly fulfilled, I had to help others realize their own success. Continue reading