Generating high quality sales on a regular basis can be either really hard and stressful or really exciting and enjoyable. Sadly, for most businesses, making frequent high calibre sales is a struggle. It’s easy to see why, when you look at what they do.
They make life as hard as they possibly can for themselves, by replicating what their competitors are already doing!
How to make sales the HARD way
Most small and medium-sized businesses offer the same kind of service as their competitors, for the same kind of price as their competitors, to the same potential clients as their competitors.
Then, they market this service in the same way as their competitors. The net result is that AT BEST, their service seems just the same as all the others!
For example, there are over a dozen, equally-qualified law firms in my local area – but I could not give you one valid reason to pick one of them rather than another! In fairness, the same could be said of most service providers in most areas.
How to make sales the EASY way
To regularly generate high quality sales, you need to start by putting all the odds in YOUR favour! You do this by:
1. Offering the marketplace something it wants.
2. Being the only provider of this product or service – so there’s no competition.
Break away from the pack
To achieve sales success in a competitive industry, it is essential for you to break away from the pack and design your business and marketing around what the marketplace wants.
Most businesses wrongly assume that because their competitors are doing things in a certain way, they should too. However, as we have seen, when you follow the pack you simply blend into the background. How do you break free from the pack and ensure you are moving in the right direction?
Listen to your marketplace
The first thing you need to do is identify a genuine need within your marketplace, which is either not being serviced by anyone or not being serviced correctly. Most businesses will listen to their clients and the prospective clients they meet and then use this tiny, unrepresentative group to base their picture of the marketplace on. This is too small a section for you to accurately read what the market for your services REALLY wants from a provider.
If you want to make the right decisions, you need to listen to the needs of the wider marketplace. This is where all your future clients are, after all.
Fortunately, this has never been easier, thanks to the Internet! From the comfort of your desk, you can find out what your prospective clients are worried about and what problems they have. Armed with this information, it’s easy to spot opportunities for your business.
Remember, whatever industry you are in, you are always a professional problem solver. If you are a dentist, you solve the problem of tooth-ache – if you are a web designer, you solve the problem of ugly or poorly-functioning websites etc.
How to get all the information you need
Without doubt, the fastest and least expensive way for any small or medium-sized business to learn what their marketplace really wants or needs, is to follow their marketplace ‘online’. The best way to quickly collect all this information, 100% free, is to find some blogs, websites and forums that your marketplace read / comment on and then READ THEM!
The easiest way is via RSS (you can find out about RSS here.)
For example, let’s assume Bob runs a commercial insurance brokerage and he specialises in working with hotels, based within a 100 mile radius of him. He would subscribe to the RSS feed of each blog in his area, that’s focused on the hospitality industry. He would then take time to read the questions that hoteliers ask in these blogs, as this is a good way to learn about their concerns or problems.
Bob could also start his own blog and use it as a way to communicate with the marketplace. Unlike a website, a blog allows you to have a dialogue or conversation with all your readers and everyone can join in. This is a superb way to get the essential feedback you need and to learn what your marketplace wants. By the way; it’s also very effective as a way to make new contacts.
Bob could also use his blog to share useful resources with his readers, so they start to think of him as a problem solver; giving him a massive competitive advantage over his competitors.
Creativity and marketing
Once you learn the problems and challenges facing your marketplace, you now need to get creative! You need to either think of a way to adapt one of your existing services, so that it solves these problems or you need to create a new service.
For example, I did this exercise with one of my clients a while ago. He owned a successful accountancy practice and we found that in his area, local businesses were crying out for a professional lunchtime networking event. So, we developed a free networking event every month and the results were stunning. Not only did he manage to generate stacks of new clients and contacts through these events, he found a second, even more valuable benefit.
When he or one of his staff met with a potential client, because they were the only practice in the area offering this free facility, they were seen as the accountants who not only ‘did the numbers’ – but helped their clients make money too! This set them apart from all their competitors and led to some amazing results.
Is it time you broke away from the pack?
Whatever area of business you are in, you will always find it hard to win new clients or make more sales, if you are replicating / repeating what your competitors are doing. Find out what your marketplace really wants and then focus on delivering it in the most effective way possible. It’s a lot easier to make sales when your product or service is the answer to a problem, that no one else in your area / region is solving other than you.
That’s how to make sales the easy way!
Right on! I teach my clients (small business owners) how to re-write ALL their advertising material. I teach them to provide added-value content. I teach them to tell stories about their business, about their products or services.
Consumers don’t want to be sold. They are sick and tired of sales pitches. They want valuable information that will allow them to make their own decisions.
Hello Pierre,
Thanks for your comment. I’m glad you like the post.
Most small businesses owners spend too much time emulating their competitors – yet, you can only grab a bigger market share when you are either offering something uniquely valuable OR marketing it more effectively OR (preferably) both.
This is precisely what we need Jim: fresh thinking. It’s getting horrendous wading through thousands of websites all created with the same misguided thinking on ‘how to get noticed.’ Thanks so much.
Hello Patricia,
Thanks for your kind words – it’s always great to be recognised by a fellow marketing professional.
I think the problem is that marketing is often made overly confusing; by people trying to sell books/courses/audio programs with THEIR ‘unique take’ on how to market a business. In trying to be different for the sake of it – readers are often given very shaky marketing advice.
Thanks for the comment Patricia.
Jim, great post, and what a breath of fresh air.
One so rarely hears anyone giving this type of advice, although it really is a no-brainer. Why spend all of your time chasing your competition, what I call “monkey see monkey do marketing” when what you can do instead is focus on what your client wants?
This is what I’ve done for all of the years I’ve been in business. Listening to what people want, and providing it is why I started a virtual assistance practice that focuses solely on the needs of mortgage professionals. Although they are in the business of financing real estate, they have a unique set of needs and challenges that are very different from those of real estate agents.
Hello Jackie,
Thanks for the comment and your kind words!
I enjoyed this and found it most useful. Thank you.
Jim,
.
Saw this post linked from Twitter. I retweeted for you
One thing I have learned is it’s best if you can look for improvements to the way things are currently being offered. In the “nothing new under the sun” category, most general ideas are already there. But it’s communicating the innovations in some small aspect that will set us apart.
Warmly,
Felicia
Felicia,
You make a very good point – PLUS you have just perfectly demonstrated the power of online networking / social media.
You found this post via Twitter, then shared it with your contacts.
Thanks!
Excellent insights. There’s room for every single business – you just need to figure out how you can offer what you love to do in a way that creates great value for your clients. People want what you have to offer when it’s presented well. Love the lunch networking idea!
Elaine,
Thanks for your kind words. Glad you found it useful.
Nice post Jim. What I’m finding is that more and more small business owners are willing to step “outside the box” with their marketing but they aren’t sure which direction to step. They know they need to stand out from the crowd but need some help in doing it.
One thing I’ve been advocating to my marketing consulting clients is that customers no longer want to go to you… you have to go to them. For instance, you can’t expect them to visit your blog. Instead, you have to go where they live (be it social networking sites, product review sites, whatever) and provide your information. If they like it, then they’ll come to you. RSS feeds are pushing this idea even further.
It’s time we stop dragging clients to us and start dragging ourselves to our clients.
Jared Young
Jared,
Some interesting ideas there – Thanks for sharing them.
Jim,
Great ideas and I love how aggressive you are with all of this, including your own marketing. Refreshing.
Steve,
Aggressive?
Yes – aggressive. It’s very hard to keep up with you man! The amount of information and your ability to stay on top of these responses is impressive. Ok – aggressive is maybe not the best word. How about proficient?
Steve,
Proficient – I like that!
i agree that listening to the client is very important. So many times I see my friends or colleagues swimming against the stream, trying to CONVINCE potential/existing clients about why they should go their way.
I like to see where the flow is, that the client has chosen, and then tailor my services to meet their identified needs and expectations.
Sometimes that means referring them on~which is fine~they remember me for my sincerity in wanting to help, providing A direction, and I get to network with people who do referrals back~ or at least talk about me
Another great article!!
@iKyleR
[...] like my older laptop, which does everything really well, a business needs to offer more than a good quality service if it wants to attract stacks of word of mouth recommendations. [...]
Just discovered your blog, and it really has a great focus on real info, compared to many. I like the free networking event, we are in the midst of implementing one ourselves on the top 10 ways for local businesses to promote themselves online to their local customers. This local angle is really neglected by most.
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