Selling to Small Businesses

A survey released today by ShareBuilder401K (conducted by Harris) says that more than half of U.S. small business owners plan to retire AFTER age 65 — or never.   And it’s a good thing, because almost half (47%) say they are not confident they are saving enough for retirement.  And even more (63%) offer no retirement [...]

A lot of companies that want to capture the loyalty of small businesses have the right idea.  They understand that small business owners are more likely to consider a vendor to be adding value if that vendor provides access to complementary products and services from partners. But what usually happens is this:  the vendor links to some partners in the footer or side column [...]

Perhaps this story will sound familiar.  A technology entrepreneur leading a tech company wanted to jump start sales, which had fizzled.  New sales were next to non-existent.  A competitor had come out of nowhere and was proving a formidable challenge. This particular entrepreneur did what many CEOs who are comfortable with technology do:  he spent most of his [...]

In an article at B2B Marketing Trends, Lloyd Corder says there are seven questions to ask to measure the return on your marketing investment.  Among them is this question:  7. Lifetime Customer Value (What is the value of a new customer over the lifetime of its business with our organization?) A lot of marketing focuses on [...]

“Selling used to be about closing.  But it isn’t anymore.  It used to be about handling objections or about preventing objections from coming it.  *** And selling isn’t about being confrontational.” So starts a short audio file (podcast) by Greg Balanko at the Business Performance Coaching blog.  I’ve paraphrased his words a bit, but those [...]

Via Lori Richardson’s Sales Coach blog [link no longer available] I found an absolute gem – a free download from Tom Peters, the renowned management guru.  It has 111 quick-to-read tips about selling.  The very first tip hit me between the eyes, because it is one that people sometimes plain forget.  It essentially says (and I paraphrase):  Strategy is overrated [...]