What are you doing to sell your product? Are you working on your branding, advertising, using social media, networking? Awesome!!! But you haven't answered the question...What are you doing to SELL your product?
To many small business owners mistake marketing for sales. Marketing is everything you do to promote your product/service on a regular basis. Marketing is extremely important. You must build your brand and image so customers recognize you and your product offering. Social media activity helps build relationships over the internet and allows you to reach more people than ever before. Networking and meeting people is the basis of building the connections necessary to build your business. All that said, marketing is not sales.
Sales is the exchange of goods and services for payment (money). It takes effort to make sales beyond marketing. I'm not saying you need to go Glengarry Glen Ross and be all "coffee is for closers" but you can't go Field of Dreams either and hope to "build it and they will come". It is important that you make an effort to reach out to your prospective customers, determine their needs and provide solutions to their problems. Put yourself in their shoes and seek ways to help solve their problems with your product. Remember, it isn't about you, it is about them. Don't be afraid to ask the prospective customer to buy. If they say yes, great, but if they say no that should help bring out more information on their needs that you can address. No doesn't always mean no, sometimes it means "I'm not ready yet. Tell me more so I can be comfortable with my buying decision". In official sales talk this is called "dealing with objections" but in reality it is really just helping the customer better understand.
Finally, know that as the owner of the business you are the number one sales person. I've seen to many business owners that are so afraid of "sales" and being seen as "high pressure" that they won't ask for the business. Usually they are not being high pressure rather it is their lack of confidence that keeps them from asking for the business. If you want to have a successful business you need to be confident in your product and in yourself. No one will be more passionate about what your business does than you. Let that passion show through and good things will happen.
Only through sales will your product or service get to those that need it. Isn't that the point...to help people with your product? Sure it is, so go out and make it happen.
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