When is the right time to sell?

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Categories: Business Attitude, Marketing Small Business

small business marketingImagine standing at an event and someone comes over to say hello.  You shake hands and you both introduce yourself.

The other person asks what line of business you are in and you tell them.  You politely return the favour and this is when the floodgates open!

You end up being talked at for 10 minutes about what this person does, what impact their business has on their clients and the cherry on the cake is a suggestion to meet up for coffee to show you exactly how you may be able to benefit.

Woooo! Hold your horses! Where did all that come from?  You only asked what line of business they were in.

You’ve never met, you’ve have no knowledge of each other and there is very little rapport and yet, time and time again small business owners feel this super-sales pitch technique on first time meeting is acceptable.

It’s almost as if they feel that this first meeting is the only time to make an impression and the quicker they can get down to business, the quicker they can qualify whether there is a potential sale to be made.

No matter how tough business is for you at the moment, going for the sales juggular can often lead to sudden death.

So when is the right time to sell?

Selling is an incredible important part of the business process. Without the selling part of the process, you won’t make any revenue and your business will grind to halt.  But selling can only happen if the other person is buying.

The right time to sell, is when the other person feels it is the right time to buy. And for most small business owners, a certain amount of trust, respect and rapport needs to be in place before this can happen.

Begin first meetings by asking questions, listening and exchanging contact details.  Build relationships over time and you will actually find that you never need to make a sales-pitch because the right time to sell will be when the other person buys from you.

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2 Responses to “When is the right time to sell?”

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  1. zoe
    May 15, 2009 at 6:37 pm

    Karen

    Even worse when you are the one who has invested in the stand! And worse again when you have other people waiting behind who clearly want to talk to you…

    Zoe

    [Reply]

  2. Karen Skidmore
    May 16, 2009 at 9:23 am

    Hi Zoe – pleased to see I wasn’t the only one in the firing line at the Grow Guildford Exbo this week :) Yup, Wednesday certainly inspired this blog posting.

    Had several business owners who clearly hadn’t invested in a stand themselves, who thought it appropiate to use this opportunity to go sell to the stand owners. In fact, had a phone call from a business who will remain nameless, call me late on Friday afternoon go straight in to sales pitch mode – and all because he got my name and number from the exhibition magazine. He even seemed quite put out when I stopped him in his tracks and said a firm “no thanks” to end the call!

    If he had asked a few questions and found out a little more about me, I would have been seriously interested.

    [Reply]

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