That's the title of Laura Petrecca's article in USA Today, but actually it's by no means just about "older" Americans: the stats indicate it's "just-plain American" (of all ages) who are starting new businesses, electing self-employment, and otherwise going off on their own as consultants, free-agents, and the like. Here are some of the key numbers on self-employment from that article:
Continue reading “Never too late to start a business,” USA Today
Situation: you're making a call on a prospect, and you initially think you are making your sales call to the right person at the right level, but then you get the sense you have come in at too low a level (of budget or authority).
Indicators: Suppose you make your presentation and feel interest on the supposed decision maker’s
Indicators: It seems that as soon as you demolish one sales objection the prospect raises another, and then another.
What this indicates: A string of relatively insignificant objections, thrown out one after the other,
"Twenty years ago teaching people how to start their own businesses was a
sideshow at B-schools, of scant interest to future consultants and Wall
Streeters. Today entrepreneurship education is everywhere. More than two-thirds
of U.S. colleges and universities — well over 2,000, up from 200 in the 1970s
— are teaching it, and they offer it to all comers: social workers, farmers,
and even musicians. The field is thriving, but have we figured out yet the best
way to teach this stuff? If not, are we at least getting better at it? And can
you even teach someone to be an entrepreneur?"— from the Fortune article, "Can you learn to be an entrepreneur?"
The article generally comes down on the side of "Yes, you can learn entrepreneurial skills and traits. It doesn't get into just what those traits are (other than developing a "proper attitude toward risk") but the sidebar, "Small-Biz U" gives an overview and slide-show of five programs on small business and entrepreneurship.
The article seems more oriented to entrepreneurship in the larger sense — developing business plans and setting up firms — than it is to opportunities in self-employment, consulting, and free-agency.
Can you learn to be an entrepreneur? Fortune article
Link to related article and slides in Fortune: "5 schools for entrepreneurs"
You’ll find
here in Selling Face to Face.com free sales training articles and tutorials, checklists and sales tips, as
well as links to our sales training books.
The free sales training
articles and tutorials here in Selling Face To Face.com are adapted from the courses and workshops I
developed on contract for the “sales universities” of world-class marketing
companies such as Xerox in the United States and abroad, Kodak, Motorola,
Sylvania, Bank of America, and others . . . as filtered through my own
experience in marketing consulting services.
The aim is to provide practical sales
training across the spectrum from beginners (starting up new businesses, or
making career changes) to experienced sales people looking for fresh approaches,
or hoping to gain the kind of professional selling skills they would have
developed as attendees in big company sales training
programs.
In the
free sales training articles here, and in the related books, we cover topics
including,
The nature of work may be changing, suggests Michael Luo in The New York Times, as work may be "becoming more temporary and project-based, with workers increasingly functioning as free agents and no longer being governed by traditional long-term employer-employee relationships."
Michael Sinclair, featured in the article, speaking of his role as an independent contractor in the
Continue reading Independent contractors, consultants, free agents: article in New York Times
In this segment, we'll be focusing on some key questions in developing your sales success strategies: , specifically, why people (and organizations) buy, and, hence, how you can help them WANT to buy what you offer.
Continue reading Why people (and organizations) buy . . . or not
Came on this in yesterday's Washington Post, an article about a recent (20 years ago) college grad, Jim Garland, who started out "working for a medical supplies company selling badges that
measure radiation emitted from X-ray machines.
"It was all cold calls,"
One of the old-line sales mantras is "Think positive."
Well, on that point,
Continue reading 5 Ways to Become an Optimist. And, Joining Miracles
The five-step model approach in responding to objections and questions: Explore, Listen Well, Restate (if appropriate), Respond, then Move on.
1. Explore. Ask questions to get the person talking about what they really mean by the objection, and why it's important to them. (Why do you feel that way? will do if nothing better comes to mind.)
2. Listen well to their response. You may have heard this objection a dozen times already this week, but this person may put a different twist on it. Don't be too quick in cutting off the Prospect's response in order to interject your response. The more you know about the Prospect's needs and mindset the better you can target your response. Sometimes, the Prospect will actually respond to her own concern, and say something like, Never mind, I think I've answered myself. That's really not so important, after all.
3. Restate, if appropriate. In many cases, it can be helpful to both yourself and the Prospect to paraphrase your understanding of the core of the Prospect's response. For one thing, it forces you to listen closely, so you can restate it clearly. Second, it forces the Prospect to listen to you in turn, to ensure that your restatement is accurate. Further, in some cases, by restating, you may be able to defuse, or take the edge off, the customer's concern.
4. Respond to what they have actually said. There may be a deeper meaning behind the objection, so focus on that. Example
“You say that your firm has already tried using consultants, and isn't interested. But I'm picking up a deeper message that your dissatisfaction was with the work of one particular consulting firm that didn't work out for you. I'd like to explain how . . .”
5. Move on from there; don't get bogged down in your response. Respond to the objection, then go on with your sales call.
If you say too much in response to an objection, you may blow it up into something larger and more significant than the Prospect originally had in mind. If you bog down on it, repeating and elaborating your reaction, the Prospect will think this really must be a major concern, and take that as a reason not to buy.
Conversely, if you treat the objection as a small issue not very important, you are send the subliminal message is that it is just that— minor, not a significant concern, not an issue that could possibly stop the sale.
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The content in this post has been adapted from my books, How to Sell Face to Face: Survival Guide, and Selling 101. They are available in various e-book and paper editions; see below:
Survival Guide: Order paperback edition via Amazon
Survival Guide: Order e-book as Amazon Kindle (Amazon offers free apps that enable you to read it on your PC, Apple I-pad, I-pod, Blackberry, and others)
Survival Guide: Order e-book via Kobo, usable on various kinds of e-readers
Selling 101 (third edition): Order e-book as Amazon Kindle (Amazon offers free apps that enable you to read it on your PC, Apple I-pad, I-pod, Blackberry, and others)
Order as e-book via Smashwords, available in various formats including PDF, E-pub, and others.