If you’re running your own business, you must know how to sell. No matter what your business is about.

 

If you’re a hairdresser, you must know how to sell beauty. If you’re a graphic designer, you must know how to sell the online presence of your clients. And the list goes on and on.

 

If you don’t know how to sell, or if you’re not willing to learn how to successfully sell to close a deal, don’t start your own business. Simply because it won’t work.

[Tweet “You must master sales to run a successful business.”]

 

I have already talked about how to increase sales in your business in previous posts.

 

There are two main ways to increase sales in business:

 

EITHER

 

• You reach more people, so you’ll be more likely to close a deal among these new potential clients.

 

OR

 

• You optimise your selling process to increase your conversion rate among all the potential clients that are contacting you.

 

That’s why it’s so important to get to know your sales funnel to decide the best strategy for you.

 

Today, I’m going to focus on optimising a selling process. In other words, how to close more deals from all the clients that are contacting you at the moment.

 

Brand positioning and sales – how are they linked?

 In this post, I’m taking for granted that you’ve already worked on correctly positioning your brand in the market.

 

However, if you feel that you’re not selling as much as you could be, this could be one of the main problems: you’re not attracting your Ideal Customer Avatar.

 

You may not close a deal because these people aren’t your ideal customer, as well as they might not hire your services because you’re not the best supplier for them.

 

If that’s not you case, let’s see how to start a sales conversation to guarantee a successful result from them.

 

How to start a sales conversation: the 2 phases that you should tackle before a YES

 And this is the main problem that I’ve seen among the people that I work with in the coaching services.

 

People normally focus on the second phase:

They get a request to work with them, send their prices and wait for an answer. Most of the times, these people never get back to them.

 

What happened here?

People doing this don’t implement a well-designed sales conversation.

 

NOTE: I want to clarify that by conversation I mean every communication between you and your clients about a sale, hiring your services, etc. It can be a face-to-face conversation, a Skype chat or an exchange of email.

 

No matter what the channel is, you should tackle these two phases:

 

• Why do I want to work with you?

And this is the phase that most people forget.

 

Before telling your prices to your clients, you need to answer this question.

 

And this is something that is already in the mind of your potential clients. So you have to solve it before moving on to the second phase.

 

You must know that this is the most important phase and where the sale is decided in a 70% of the cases.

 

The objective in this phase is to click with your client. When people buy something, they want to be sure about what they are buying. They must feel that they are being understood.

 

Follow these tips to get it right:

 

• Do your research. The more you know about your potential clients before the start of the sales conversation, the better. If it’s a business or a brand, you should go to their websites, look for their values, their need and think about what they expect from you. If it’s a individual client, you can go to LinkedIn; their achievements will tell you a lot about them.
• Make your client confortable during this conversation. If they speak in a different language, make sure that you can communicate. If you want to gain more points, always talk in your customer language; they will express themselves better and they will feel more confortable. Think about anything you can do to make them feel more confident.
• They should be talking during 70% of the sales conversation. They should be explaining their needs, what they expect from you, what they want. If you feel that you’re talking too much, something’s not going well.
• Note all these needs and provide solutions related to your business. Make them see how you can help them. And here is when you should do the 30% of the sales conversation.
• DO NOT mention any price before checking the point above!

 

And this leads us to the second phase:

 

• Can I afford your services?

Now, once that we’ve done our homework, we must talk about money.

 

And let me tell you a secret, most of the times your clients will be able to afford your services and money won’t be an issue for them.

 

But it’s all about showing them everything that they can get for the money that they are investing.

 

That’s why you probably don’t have the cheapest mobile phone in the market or go to the cheapest hairdresser in town.

 

When we have a need, we focus on how it is going to be solved and not 100% on how much it is going to cost.

 

Having said that, you must be sure that you price your services or products correctly.

 

Remember that if a client says that you are too expensive is because

 

EITHER

 

You haven’t show them how they can benefit from the offer, so they don’t really know what they are paying for and, hence, they really think that you’re expensive,

 

OR

 

You’re targeting the wrong clients out there. This client can’t actually afford your services or products. Your products must target premium clients willing to pay premium prices.

 

This second option is the most dangerous one, because you’re wasting your time having sales conversations with people that aren’t your Ideal Customer Avatars, as I mentioned above.

 

If you think this is your main problem, you should go to square one again and rethink your marketing and your brand positioning in the market.

 

Have you ever thought about your sales conversations? Do you implement more tips to achieve a YES at the end? I’d love to hear from you!