Overcoming sales inertia
As mentioned in my last post, for some reasons many great ideas and enterprises get to a great stage but then never really get launched as the founders never seem to get going on the sales front.
There are many reasons for this inertia; the biggest one is probably fear of rejection. It is one thing to pitch for money from angels, to ask your friends for some feedback etc, and quite another to ask someone to part with their hard earned cash for your product or solution.
However, there are steps you can take to help yourself get over that fear/ inertia
1. Ensure you are maximising your sales time and effort.
If you are the CEO of a startup and you have a million and one things to do, you should focus your time on the warmest sales opportunities. If cold calling works on a conversion ratio of less than 20%, you should try and outsource this activity. (I do have a conflict of interest in this because I own www.springleads.com – a company that does this type of activity for companies).
People do often think of their time as ‘free’ and there is a very dangerous fallacy in that belief. You should work out what the opportunity cost of your time is. If it is less than £50 per hour, you are not aiming high enough –you are not going to get to be a large (£1m + company) if you value your time at less than that.
If there is something you are doing that can be outsourced for less than £50 per hour – why are you doing it?
2. Ensure you really believe that your solution meets a real need.
It is very hard to sell something we don’t believe in. I always remember the driving force of the Jehovah’s witnesses. Part of their belief is that each person on the planet has to be told about the Good News Bible. This explains why they remain so cheerful even when people slam the door in their face; their objective is still being met in terms of giving people the choice.
If you ask your potential customers the right questions you will find out if your solution really is the right thing for them. And if it is, the rest really becomes easy. You shouldn’t be in the business of selling, you should be in the business of helping people buy.
3. Monday – Friday 8am-6pm is prime time
It is a cardinal sin to be doing sales process stuff during the prime time hours. It really is like buying a luxury car just to do shopping trips for groceries. Your admin for sales should be done outside of these hours so that these hours are being used for ‘real’ sales stuff which involves interaction with customers.
4. Just do it
There is no such thing as the best time to call, or times to avoid. Just go for it. And there is no such thing as the perfect pitch either. Just get on with it!
If you are talking to a potential customer and engaging them – you are doing wonders!