Small business long-term selling includes social dialogue. Social conversations can identify triggers for business development. Business development activities drive revenue through your organization.
From this perspective, social conversations aren’t the sprinkles on your business cupcake. These conversations become the front end of your revenue generation cycle.
Let’s explore how this works.
Small business long-term selling works in small businesses – any size businesses – where there is a social business model and culture. You and your folks are focused on identifying information, data analysis, knowledge sharing. You are focused on communicating your findings to each other and collaborating on potential business outcomes.
If your current sales activities revolve around waiting for your outsourced sales team to identify the latest RFP or RFQ, you might have a lot of down-time between projects. Alternatively, you and your team can actively engage in generating pre-sale conversations. Identify additional opportunities. Move beyond your current waiting-around-for-the-RFQ-to-be-released business model.
Small business long-term selling identifies social trigger events as opportunities for customer development and eventual lead nurturing. This strategy allows your entire internal team, including your C-Suite, to engage in conversations that potentially result in your company becoming the basis of design for that RFP.
Small business long-term selling re-defines your sales cycle as starting long before the call for responses. A long-term selling strategy emphasizes the importance of early social conversations and business development in generating cash flow and sustaining your revenue stream.
Small business long-term selling allows you and your team to influence and impact your customers’ decision making long before the eventual close of the sale. Your entire internal team works on behalf of business development. Your sales folks will thank you for your efforts.
Today’s buying committees are looking for long-term partnerships with their suppliers. Long-term partnerships are not created when business is only transacted between a purchasing agent and a sales rep. This traditional sales methodology hides the capabilities of your small business team under the proverbial bushel basket.
Your small business is more than doers who execute in turnkey fashion what your sales reps sell, isn’t it?
A small business long-term selling strategy increases the reach of your entire company.
- Start with social conversations.
- Identify the individuals behind the 140-characters.
- Carry those social conversations offline.
- Engage them in networking conversations which build the credibility of you and your team to execute profitable business outcomes.
- Nurture and develop customer relationships.
- Become Top-of-Mind for that RFP/RFQ.
Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC, is a management consultant and business coach. Babette develops business, technical and engineering professionals of worth. She remodels startups and small-to-medium manufacturing and service companies experiencing difficulty with unpredictable revenue streams.
A recognized Top 50 Marketing & Sales Influencer, Babette’s blog won the 2014 Bronze Medal, Top Sales & Marketing Awards, Top Sales World. Her book on business development and collaboration strategies and tools, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com.
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