Do you jump the gun?

I’ll venture to guess that you didn’t start your business because you are one hell of a salesperson and decided to sell something of your own. Though there are a few people like that, I am sure that your reason for becoming an entrepreneur is because you are crazy passionate about what you do! You became an entrepreneur to help people, to change lives, to make businesses run easier, and to influence change. So why are we so quick to overlook the fact that we need to be able to successfully share what we offer with our ideal clients?

It’s time for a mindset shift for all you sales professionals and entpreneurs. It’s time to start thinking about building relationships, not just having transactions. It’s time to become a better communicator to understand the phases that your business will go through in attracting prospects and converting them in to lifelong clients. I want you to build relationships that lead to revenue.

Strategy is the vehicle that drives you to your goal. The goal for any successful business is to build lifelong relationships that generate revenue and fuel expansion. My goal when working with clients is to build communication strategies that help them feel comfortable in their own skin and to share their services without any qualms around selling. It’s about building relationships, and it all starts with a conversation. Successful people feel good about what they do and build that feeling into their sales conversations.

I’d like to share a story about my dear friend and client who is a growth strategist. She helps entrepreneurs build to seven figures by developing programming and understanding their revenue streams. She has been a client of mine for over three years, and our client relationship really started one fateful day when we met for lunch.

She called me one day and sounded completely defeated. She said there had to be some kind of disconnect from what she was saying, because she wasn’t experiencing success in her sales conversations. She asked to meet for lunch and discuss the issue. When I walked into the restaurant, she was sitting at the booth furthest from the front door. I sat next to her in the booth and could see the frustration and defeat in her eyes. I asked her to tell me what had happened. She told me that she wasn’t a good salesperson and that she didn’t know how to sell effectively. She had worked so hard at creating a brilliant business model with service offerings that were clear and specific, but something was missing.

I asked her to walk me through how she was selling. She told me she would invite people who showed a sincere interest in her to a call or face-to-face meeting to get to know one another. She would go over her service offerings with them when they showed interest. Her prospect would say something like, “This sounds incredible, but I need to think about it.” She continued sharing how she would send them an email or call them in the next few days and get no response. My mind started to race and it became clear to me where the disconnect was: her prospects weren’t ready to be sold to.

It may sound odd since the reaction she was getting from her prospects sounded positive. They took the appointment and even said that they were interested. Why weren’t they buying? I looked her in the eye and shared where the first point of disconnect was: she needed separate meetings.

People who show interest in us at a networking event or from an introduction are looking to get to know us. They may know what we do, how we do it, and even what type of investment they need to make, but they don’t know you yet. The first meeting you have with someone often needs to be around getting to know them and them getting to know you. Position your meeting as just that. Invite them for an opportunity to share who they are and you will do the same, no strings attached.