Consultative Selling for Nichepreneurs™
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Consultative Selling for Nichepreneurs™
Achieving Riches in Niches means occupying a dual role: acting first as a skilled professional, you must also be a powerful, effective sales force. Not only do you perform the services your clients value, but you promote and market yourself as the best place to obtain those services.
While you may be very confident in your professional skills, it's the sales part of the equation that's proving to be problematic for many Nichepreneurs™. Don't worry. You're not alone! Many Nichepreneurs™ find themselves in exactly that position: while they know practically everything possible about their profession, they're not nearly as strong when it comes to presenting themselves and their services for sale.
Selling is both an art and a science. Sales professionals devote years of their lives learning the best way to approach a potential client, create and negotiate a relationship, and finally, most essential of all, close a sale. These are all specific skills, and you don't automatically come into possession of them because you go into business for yourself.
Luckily, sales skills are the type you can acquire ‘on the job'. However, you want to minimize the learning curve and quickly gain mastery of these skills -- after all, it's literally your livelihood on the line.
One of the most powerful and effective sales tools -- and one that is a logical natural fit for Nichepreneurs™ -- is the consultative selling model.
Consultative selling has been around for a very long time. The model first appeared in the 1970's, and it's been used successfully ever since. A consultative sales experience is different from any other type of selling, because you begin the relationship with your potential client by providing value right off the bat.
Imagine this scenario. You're a Nichepreneur™, specializing in workplace efficiency. If a job site isn't working as well as it could be -- projects are taking too long, customers are complaining, sales numbers are dropping -- you want to be the person called in to get the team back on track. You've got great problem solving skills, years of management experience, and a staggering ability to cut through the nonsense and get to the core of the problem.
The only problem is, no one knows you can do all of this.
In a consultative selling scenario, you meet with someone who is trying to turn their company around. Free of charge, without any sales pressure whatsoever, you go to their site. You do a needs assessment, identifying challenges and problem areas. It's critical to pay careful attention to the client, so that you both hear and understand what they perceive the issue to be and what outcome they'd like to realize. That's when you offer some suggestions and solutions to their issues.
Implementing your solutions brings us to the sales part of the conversation. At this point, you've already demonstrated an understanding of the client and their needs. You've offered real value: insight and useful recommendations. The client is already beginning to trust you. You've lowered the sales resistance walls that may have existed between you and your client. Closing the deal is an extension of the process begun with that initial consultation.
The question then becomes: how do I connect with people in the first place? How do I get them to want to talk to me about their problems?
There are many answers to that question, and they all come down to one answer: visibility. If you want people to take you up on the offer for free consultations, the first step in the consultative selling process, you need to put the offer where they can easily see and act upon it.
Ways to do this include:
Print Media: Many publications offer an "About the Author" paragraph or blurb. Use this space to offer a carefully worded free consultation. If you submit articles to free content websites, make sure the offer is part of your boilerplate text (generally a paragraph that appears after the article), so it appears each and every time the article runs.
On Your Website: Feature your free consultation offer prominently on your website. Position it so that people can click a button or send an email immediately after reading about the offer -- you don't want to lose them by making them search page after page finding a way to contact you! Make sure to mention the free consultation offer sporadically in your blog.
Community Events: Community events are a great way to generate free consultation leads. Consider conducting a class, teaching a seminar, or leading a workshop. Offer all participants a free consultation. Only a few will take you up on it -- but if those few turn into sales, you've more than recovered your investment in the event.
These are some of the most common ways to promote a free consultation offer. If you're hesitant about your sales skills, consider consultative selling. It's an easy way to demonstrate your professional skills, which may be far more comfortable than straight selling. You'll grow and refine your approach with each consultation, and before you know it, meeting with potential clients will seem as easy as pie!
Consultative Selling for Nichepreneurs - To learn more about this author, visit Susan Friedmann's Website.
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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