Small business owners including many not for profits love their solutions. They enjoy delivering their products or services because they believe their products or solutions are the “cat’s meow.”
What happens is these dedicated small businesses focus far too much time on delivering their solutions or even creating new solutions (think playing with a Rubric’s Cube) and not enough time on small business sales (marketing and selling).
The end result is this common conundrum “delivery of solutions” versus “marketing and selling” of solutions.
Newsflash … Small business solutions do not market or sell themselves.
Yes this may be heartbreaking to hear.
Newsflash … You, as the sales professional, must venture forth out of your office to attract attention and begin to build relationships to earn those small business sales.
Sales leads do not fall at your front doorstep without considerable marketing taking place.
Yes it is important to fine tune your offerings, to make them highly polished, glistening for the taking.
However if you never sell them, they will turn like polished silverware or tea servings to a dull gray finish.
Newsflash … Marketing and selling take time and for those starting out is hard work.
Even seasoned sales professionals who enjoy selling, who are energized by the marketing and selling activities associated with small business sales, occasionally get tired from all the hard work and sometimes even a tad disillusioned.
Sitting in your small business office tinkering with your solutions including your marketing brochures, your website is safe and may become your own cave of delusion.
When you go out in the public possibly reluctantly seeking those small business sales, you may subconsciously project your own fears of selling or you may be so focused on your solutions you just make continual pitches and fail to connect on the H2H level. (Human to Human)
Yes it is important to believe in what you have to offer.
With that said, unless you can attract attention, influence others and build those critical relationships, you will be left in your cave, admiring all your handiwork and playing with your Rubric’s cube instead of counting your sales dollars.
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