photo by Jesse757

It can be really hard to get someone’s attention.  From a business perspective, there are people walking around you right now who have money and could theoretically spend it on your product or service.  If you could get their attention – you might be able to sell them something.

The problem is that other than the fact that they are people and can fog a mirror, you probably don’t know much about them.  You don’t know if they have any money.  You don’t know if they already have a solution for what you do.  You don’t know if they would be interested in what you do or not.  In short, you don’t know them…and they don’t know you.

Did I mention it’s really hard to get someone’s attention these days?  We’re all being bombarded by thousands of messages every day…and it can be really hard for something to get through all that noise!

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Sales is the lifeblood of small business success.  You can have the best product, the best service in the world, but without closing a sale, it doesn’t mean anything.  Unfortunately it can be difficult to get that sale closed, people may like to buy, but they don’t like to be sold.

With that in mind, there is one thing that you can do that will greatly increase your chances for selling success.  It’s counterintuitive and it can be really difficult to pull off, especially if you have a lot riding on closing the deal.  But it will work for any industry and any selling situation and it doesn’t really matter what your sales technique might be.

What’s the one thing that can make such a big difference?

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photo by sean rogers1

You have to love the clarity and power of numbers.

Now that school’s started up again, homework is ramping up as well and my wife and I had a great ‘tutoring’ session with my daughter on her math homework.  My daughter was struggling with one of the concepts and wanted to argue that the answer we had led her to wasn’t right….

But that’s the beauty of math and numbers…they are either right or they’re not.  You may be asking the wrong question, but when the answer is in numbers, it’s very clear where you stand.  43 is bigger than 35 – and it’s always going to be bigger.

That’s why when you’re analyzing your business and your goals, the more things you can tie to a number, the better off you’ll be.

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  photo by jsorbieus

Can generosity – giving stuff away, helping others really help you win at business?

This came up the other day during a workshop I was doing on Guerrilla Marketing – one of the characteristics of a successful Guerrilla Marketer is Generosity (contact me if you’d like to get an evaluation for all 16 characteristics).

I was talking about the importance of generosity when it comes to business and marketing success in front of 25 people and one of them interrupted and said quite brusquely:

“I totally disagree with the generosity point – I’ve given free things away for years and I’ve never…ever…gotten any business out of it!”

Nothing’s more fun than having a heckler when you’re giving a presentation!    However to be fair, I know lots of people who disagree with giving things away or helping others out when it comes to business. 

A big part of my approach with Aspire since I started over 3 years ago is a focus on the concept of generosity, paying it forward, karma, etc.  Not just as a philosophical idea, but because it’s good business!  However the heckling did get me to thinking about WHY this concept of generosity is important.  I came up with seven practical reasons you would want to develop a give first, give more approach with your business.

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I had a chance to check out Shrek Forever After this afternoon and one of the scenes that caught my attention was the sales process between RumpelStiltskin and Shrek (see picture above, courtesy of Dreamworks)

Rumpelstiltskin, if you’re not familiar is a magical dealmaker who specializes in granting wishes…with unfortunate consequences and lots of fine print.  In the movie he hangs out at the Crone’s Nest Carriage Park (full of witches and crones) and desperately wants to become the ruler of Far, Far Away (where Shrek lives).

What does this have to do with business?  Well our man Rumpel is a true salesman and he displays some serious selling skills in the movie that could benefit anyone in business.

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