How learning to love selling can transform your business

Hayley Caine of Selling Made Easier, a Boost & Co partner, looks at ways Lancashire business owners can improve performance by thinking about selling in a different way.

Many business owners I’ve met over the last 20 years don’t like sales. Yet if they changed how they thought about sales they could vastly improve their results. My dad influenced my sales thinking from an early age. He said that wherever you are at any given time, take a look around and note all the products surrounding you. At least 20 brilliant sales people will have sold in the supply chain every item in that room. For example, my kitchen; skirting boards, kitchen cabinets, windows, flooring, paint, table, chairs, window blinds, cups. Without great sales activity businesses don’t flourish.

So why don’t we love sales or selling?

Some of the common reasons I hear from business owners for disliking sales are formed by their own experiences of being sold to: “I hate pushy sales people.” “I am sick of getting sales calls.” “Sales people try to sell you things you don’t need.” “They are all about their targets and not what is right for you.” “If I speak to them once I can never get rid of them pestering me.” In other cases, it’s their own experiences of trying to sell that have knocked their confidence. I hear things like: “I feel uncomfortable talking about price.” “Selling to people makes me cringe.” “People don’t want to see me and don’t have time.” “I am not a sales person.” “I’m always asked to reduce my price” What underlies all this is our stiff upper lip culture about discussing money and the fear of rejection. We all start our businesses doing what we love and what we are great at technically, but the long-term prospects for growth aren’t good if we do not focus energy on becoming a better salesperson. The reasons why selling becomes neglected include:

We don’t think or act like a sales person
We don’t have a plan or target
We don’t track sales activity
We don’t have to answer to a manager
We don’t see sales as helping our customers to grow their business
We don’t know our margins and understand how to impact profit
We neglect existing customers and forget to tell them all the great things we do
We are easily demotivated and frustrated
We don’t allocate enough time to sell

What can you do to change this?

Spending just one hour focusing on your sales department, reviewing sales roles and examining what hours you can personally devote to improving sales will make a huge impact. Not taking the time to improve your sales approach result in:

A cheesy, pushy, unethical sales person is selling to your customers
Your business is in financial difficulty
Your health suffering
People not being aware of your great products and services
Losing your mojo and falling out of love with your business that started as a great passion.

Spend an hour nurturing your sales department, loving your favourite customers, finding new ones that you get on with. Review your process, pricing and conversion rates. Worry and stress will be reduced.