Selling Services To Small Business Clients
You can be good at sales and still feel frustrated by how often people say “I’ll think about it” or just don’t buy.
Maybe you’ve invested time in improving your sales skills; you’ve learnt how to hold a sales conversation properly. And yet, selling is still soooo much harder than it should be.
The good news is that this usually has nothing to do with confidence, closing techniques, or objection handling. Phew!
In this week’s 5-minute business tips video, I explain why improving your sales skills doesn’t automatically make selling easier, and outline what’s actually missing from most sales conversations.
Most small business owners assume that if they get better at sales techniques, conversion rates will improve and selling will feel more natural. But it just doesn’t work like that.
Because value is defined by the client, not by you, and unless you can clearly articulate the value for that individual client, they just won’t buy. Even if they like you. Even if they believe you’re brilliant at what you do. This is the real reason people fob you off by saying “I need to think about it” instead of saying yes.
Too many sales conversations focus on what the business does, and how it delivers, rather than what changes for the client. Listening more closely, reflecting back very specific challenges, and talking in outcomes rather than features makes it much easier for clients to see the value of working with you.
If people are nodding along but still not buying, that’s a sign that your value is still too vague.
The second issue is positioning. Experts make clear recommendations. Hesitation around pricing, over-explaining details, or avoiding a firm recommendation weakens your expert role and makes clients feel uncertain. You might think you’re being helpful and avoiding coming across as pushy, but to the client you just look wishy washy!
Confidence does not mean being pushy. It means being clear.
In this week’s video, I break this down with practical examples so you can spot what is really going wrong in your sales conversations and fix it.
If you would like help clarifying your value, positioning yourself as the expert, and making selling feel more natural, you can explore how I work with business owners here.
