Success starts and ends with your thinking, change your thinking and you change your results.
Would you like:
- to make more profit faster, easier and with integrity?
- more happy clients who pay the rate your solution is worth and refer you?
- to embrace selling and feeling confident each time you are with a client?
Here are our five secrets to immediate business growth.
Secret 1: Sales = helping
Think of it like this – here are people that need something solved. These people may need what you have. If you don’t let them know you can help them you are doing them a disservice!
Be positive about your solution
Start each day and interaction with ‘I’m here to help’
I need to let more people know how my solution can assist them in their lives/work by making them happier, saving or making money, saving or creating time.
Secret 2. Understand your customer
Stop trying to sell! Stop trying to ‘persuade’.
Move your attention and your focus onto ‘understanding’ your client and how your solution can help them.
Ask questions
Build an arsenal of open ended questions to keep your client talking about their situation. Have hundreds of questions practiced.
Be inquisitive, be curious
Your questions should be a natural expansion of what they are saying, It shouldn’t feel like an interview. There should be flow. It needs to be obvious why you are asking the question and tailored to that client. 84% of customers say being treated like a person/an individual, not a number, is very important to winning their business*
Secret 3. Stop talking and start listening
The only talking you should be doing is asking fantastic questions. 90% of the time the client should be talking. You need to be listening.
Be present – By being prepared for the meeting and clearing all distractions in your mind you can focus 100% on what your client is saying
Listen and beware
We have a propensity to hear what we want to hear and jump to assumptions.
Aligning
The client has told you everything they want – NOW forward your solution that aligns with their values, motivation, desires, likes and dislikes.
Secret 4. Do what others will not do
While I was blueberry picking with my 6-year-old he said ‘Mum let’s go through the middle of the row’ which looked difficult. When I asked him why his response was ‘If you do what everyone else has done you will get what everyone else has got’. That’s what business development is about – finding other ways to seek opportunities.
Plan
The answer to your dreams is having continuous growth. Business Development professionals know how much time needs to be dedicated to growing the business. They know how many calls and meetings they need to do to exceed target.
Take action consistently
You don’t get thin by eating one healthy meal – and you don’t grow the business doing business development once. Put times in your diary. Stick to it. Be disciplined.
Follow Up
The average follow up needed is 12. Most sales people give up after three. The hard work has already taken place and then you lose it to a competitor simply because they happen to follow up more times than you. Learn about adding value with your follow ups so it’s not a ‘I’m just follow up’ conversation.
#Secret 5. Be in charge of your own mindset (your state of mind)
Success begins and ends with your mindset. If you think that client won’t buy you are right. If you think you need to negotiate, you are right. If you think the market is tough, you are right. Conversely, if you think you can make 20 calls a day and the market is buoyant, you are right. If you think it’s easy, you are right. You really are acting out the sum of your thoughts.
Re frame
One of the easiest ways to flip any negative mindset is to do a reframe. Quickly think of something worst. I read once that if we all wrote our problems on a piece of paper and threw them in a hat, once we saw what others have wrote we would soon grab our own out again. Good reframe hey? You can have that one on me.
Positive anchor
The client who said thank you, this solution really helped. An email you kept from a happy client. Feel the feelings and hear the words of happy, contented clients.
Gratitude
Start your day with gratitude. It’s no surprise that if your standard of living has increased ten fold from when you were young then you probably start each day with knowing how lucky you are. Always be grateful for what you have and acknowledge your skills that got you where you are today.
