What 10 questions should every great sales person ask?

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Laura Humphreys

sold In sales you should be listening for 80% of the time and talking for 20%. If you ask the right questions, you will find out your prospect’s real needs and find a way to sell your product/service as the solution. When selling, follow the steps below with every question:

Ask
Listen
Re-affirm (show that you’ve heard what they say… sometimes as simple as just repeating back to them what they’ve told you).
Provide solution

The following exercise helps you prepare your check list of 10 questions to take to your sales meeting/call with you. Promise yourself to ask ALL of the questions.

Questions 1 – 6: Uncover needs

Ask open questions (note: open questions typically begin with a ‘w’ – what, who, when, why?) to discover how your prospect feels about their current situation. Find out who your competition is and what they are doing right/wrong. Find out the frustrations your prospect has.

Write down 6 ‘needs based’ questions relevant to your product or service. Here are some samples:

Would you mind telling me about your current situation?

Who do you currently use for this service?

What’s working for you?

What’s not working?

What are your main frustrations?

What would you like to change about things?

Question 7: Invitation question

This is where you ask your prospect if they’d like to know more about how you could answer their needs.

Here’s the example invitation question:

“From what you’ve told me, it sounds like (your offer) could really make a difference to you. Would you like me to give you a brief description of how it works?

Have your description ‘sales pitch’ ready. As soon as you get the go ahead, give a brief, concise and enthusiastic description of your product/service (trying to steer it towards the needs you have just uncovered).

Question 8: Leading question

Here you are leading your prospect to an affirmative response to your final offer. It goes like this:

“Does this sound like something that can solve your problems/make you feel better/address your issues?”

Questions 9 and 10: The most important questions of all … asking for the sale

The last questions you should ask should be the ‘close’ or ‘asking for the order’ questions. You start with a positive clarification statement then quickly follow with a way the client can buy from you. These are the questions you must make yourself ask. You are not allowed to leave a sales meeting or call without asking for the order!

Make sure you have a way of taking their order/letting them pay with you. It’s often a good idea to offer them a choice…

“I feel really good about this, I know this is going to work well for us. What’s the best way to get things underway? I could email you an order when I get back to the office… or I could just get it from you now. What works best for you?”

Notice there are two questions in one. The first implies you are going to make the sale now. And the second gives the client choice on how to do it.

If it isn’t appropriate or possible to ask for a sale there and then, be ready with to make an agreement with them of another sort. Offer to send them something – to do something helpful for them, and make sure you follow up with it the minute you get back to your desk.

And finally…

Asking these questions doesn’t mean you have to come across as pushy – no one wants to be that. So have fun, be friendly, get to know the person and walk away feeling that you’ve had a really good chat. If you’ve asked all the questions on your list, you will know so much about them and even if you can’t get the sale immediately, you will be able to build a good plan to win them over time.

Happy selling!

PS. The above is an excerpt from my new book “The Liber8 Disciplines: A hands on guide to mastering the eight most important skills in business” To be released soon.

From the desk of Liber8me. Business mentors and publisher of Liber8 your Business: The revolutionary business planning technique that will set every small business owner free

Your business is like a shed! A lesson in successful business planning …

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Laura Humphreys

Here’s something I tell business owners all the time… “your business is like a shed”.

Whaaaat??!!

Read on for the explanation…

If I asked you to build a shed, what would you do? You would do what you do with any project, right? You’d get a picture of what the shed is supposed to look like. You’d look at the plans and follow the instructions. You’d get the right tools ready and you might even find someone else to help you build it, someone with better expertise in this type of construction.

The key distinction here is when you’re building a shed you know what it looks like, it’s a project. And a business is a project too, albeit a fairly long one. It’s not something that’s going to go on forever. It’s going to have an end. Just like any project, if you know what the end looks like you can devise the plan to get there. It’s a simple concept really but so many people don’t start a business that way. The majority start a business with no idea where it’s going. As a result a lot of valuable time is lost following strategies and tactics that are not leading to the ultimate goal… to build a business that works without YOU.

So get your picture clear. What does your shed look like? When your business fulfils all of your dreams for it, what makes it so amazing? Who are your customers? What is your team like? What does your office look like? What’s so special about it? Why do people love working there? What makes it irresistible to clients and team members alike? What makes your business a head and shoulders above the rest?

The clearer the picture of your future business you have, the better your chance of building it just like that.

Liber8ing Exercise for today: Spend 15 minutes with a blank sheet of paper and draw a picture (with words or diagrams) of what your business might look like in 5 or 1o years time. Then think about the tools you might need to get on board today to help get there.

Have fun!

PS. For more guidance on creating a clear end picture for your business, my book Liber8 your Business offers a step by step guide

From the desk of Liber8me. Business mentors and publisher of the book Liber8 your Business: The revolutionary business planning technique that will set every small business owner free

5 critical success factors for a future business sale… what every small business owner should be thinking about right now

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Laura Humphreys

Businesses do not typically sell by accident. The owners that end up selling their business for a significant amount of money have usually been preparing for that day for some time. You don’t have to be thinking about selling your business any time soon to start planning now for the day when you might want to. If you consider the following five things, you will be in good shape when the big day finally arrives…

1. Set your end goal. Decide how much you want to sell it for and by when, and work backwards. You’ll find a tool to help you work this out at www.liber8yourbusiness.com/tools.

2. Name your buyer. It’s important to have a good idea who might want to buy your business in your early planning. Imagine spending 10 years building a business you intend to sell only to realize you have created something nobody wants to buy. If you build a business with a buyer in mind, you have a much better chance of building something they really want.

A potential buyer could be a larger player in your industry looking to grow through acquisition. This growth might be regional – they want a presence in your city or town and it’s easier to buy you than start from scratch. It might be strategic – you have a smart product or service they could add to their existing infrastructure to create additional revenue streams. An example of this might be a large accounting firm buying a small book-keeping firm to add value to their client base. Your service or product could become a ‘nuisance’ to a competitor (read more on a strategy called ‘kicking sand in the gorilla’s face’ in my book, Liber8 your Business) and they buy your company to prevent it competing or to regain lost revenues. It could be a management buy-out, when senior employees raise the funds to buy you out. It could be a competitor of a similar size wanting to grow and willing to invest to gain rapid growth through acquisition. I’ve sold businesses to two types of buyer. A multinational bought my advertising agency and a local competitor bought my pet care company. My father’s photocopier business sold to his senior management team. A good friend has built three recruitment agencies. The first sold to one of the original partners, who bought out the other partners. The second sold to a multinational looking for regional representation in her city. The third is in its early days of growth and I’ll watch with interest who buys it (I have no doubt it will sell because I know the founders expect this and will build with this in mind). Another type of buyer could be a private equity group or even an individual who sees great potential in what you’ve built.

So who might want to buy your business? What are you building that could add huge value to someone’s offering? Now is the time to start thinking about these things.

3. Remove the dependence on you. To make your business attractive to your future buyer, it cannot be dependent on you. That’s a key message I want you to learn:

No one will outright buy a business that’s dependent on its owner.

If the buyer takes you out of the picture and no business remains, they will either insist you stay in the business or they will walk away. So whatever your strategy is, whatever your end goal, whatever that picture is of your shed or your man on the moon … it needs to not have you in it. I did that at my agency by making sure the clients loved the business but weren’t dependent on me. In the last few years, I hired two senior guys and put them in charge of our biggest clients, so my buyer could see the clients were not reliant on me.

4. Start building a team as soon as you can. I couldn’t afford to bring in those big guns until later in my business growth. I started by hiring people I could afford, with a couple of youngsters straight from college. I trained them to do things exactly the way I wanted. I call it ‘training your clones’. I kept building my team that way until we could afford to hire more senior people. And then we had to make sure we had a really strong culture to manage senior people.

5. Secure future earnings. Getting all our key clients on fixed-term contracts was another critical strategy that worked. They all had two or three year contracts so when the buyer looked at my business they saw a high level of spend committed for the next three years. This was an important lesson I learned from my businessman father. Remember I told you about his photocopier business and how he sold it and retired soon after his fiftieth birthday? One of the best secrets to success he shared with me was, ‘you’ve got to have a back end.’ To explain, he gave the example of his own business. While the sale or lease of each copier was worth a lot of money (especially in the 1970s when these huge machines were a relatively new addition to business productivity) the real value came from the additional contract that went with each machine. This locked the customer into buying all their ink, toner and paper for the life of the machine, as well as regular paid servicing – which meant that, for every machine sold, my father had income guaranteed for the next 10 years, enabling him to predict with complete accuracy his future income. You can see why this made by father’s business attractive for a buyer. They could see a guaranteed return on their investment. It made sense to me when I started my own business, and I hope it does to you too. It will get you a higher price when you come to sell!

A business with committed future revenue that is not dependent on its owner to deliver that revenue is a business worth investing in.

Hope these five things have given you something to think about. Good luck!

The above is an extract from my book, Liber8 your Business: The revolutionary business planning technique that will set every small business owner free. Available now on Amazon.

Do you have the right mindset to be successful, rich and free? Rate your freedom mindset here…

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Laura Humphreys

As part of my Liber8me business mentoring programmes, I spend time interviewing successful business people. My key criteria for selecting an interview subject is that the person must have built and sold at least one successful business, which has created wealth and freedom of choice for them. I ask what they believe are the key traits that have made them successful. A pattern has emerged as all interviewees mention similar traits. Ten traits stood out and I believe form the foundation of the Freedom Mindset.

Each of the ten traits is list below with a score against them. It’s time to take the test. Grade yourself on a score of 1 to 5, where 1 means ‘not at all’ and 5 means ‘totally got it nailed’, against each of the traits. Don’t feel you have to be close to a 5 score to be successful. This is a reality check to identify the areas you will need to work on as you build your business and your path to financial freedom.

1. Vision. Rate the clarity of the vision you have for your business when it is complete and you’ve created financial freedom from it.

1 2 3 4 5

2. Self-belief. Rate your confidence in your ability to build a business that will generate great wealth and freedom for you.

1 2 3 4 5

3. Passion. Rate your passion for your business

1 2 3 4 5

4. Being goal-orientated. Rate the clarity of the goals you have set for your business

1 2 3 4 5

5. Planning. Rate your current plan for a business that will feed you wealth

1 2 3 4 5

6. Being action-focussed. Rate your ability to take action as needed.

1 2 3 4 5

7. Determination. How do you rate your determination to succeed?

1 2 3 4 5

8. Willingness to fail. How would you rate your willingness to learn from failures?

1 2 3 4 5

9.Being wealth positive. How would you rate your willingness to be very wealthy?

1 2 3 4 5

10. Giving back. Rate your desire to make a difference through your business

1 2 3 4 5

Review your scores for each of the 10 traits. In which areas do you already feel strong? Which areas do you need to work on? Keep these in mind as you continue to work on your building your business and your success.

Good luck!

The above is an excerpt from my book Liber8 your Business: The revolutionary business planning technique that will set every small business owner free. Available now on Amazon.

How do you build a saleable business? Here’s a tip you can start thinking about right now…

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Laura Humphreys

Here’s an excerpt from my book Liber8 your Business… a very useful tip when it comes to planning a business that will attract a buyer in the future:

A successful angel investor friend explained to me the concept of exit strategy like this: To achieve a successful exit, it helps to view your business as a product. A good business person empathises with their customer and understands their reasons for buying your product. You know what need your product fulfils in the market and who will want to buy it. You use your expertise and experience to create the best possible product to meet this need. You build a relationship with potential customers with a view to making sales.

Now, step back and look at your business as a product. Why would someone want to buy your business in the future? Which companies could take your business and create more value with it? What needs do they have that your business could fulfil? How could you build your business to make it easy for them to acquire and integrate it with theirs? This is your market and selling proposition. And just as it takes time to build a customer base for your product, it takes time to build a relationship with your potential buyer. So start now.

For more useful strategies for building a saleable business check out Liber8 your Business: The revolutionary business planning technique that will set every small business free. Available on Amazon now.

From the desk of Liber8me. Small business mentors and publisher of Liber8 your Business.

What one thing will make your business more valuable to a future buyer? Build this ‘attractor factor’ for the future into your business plan today

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Laura Humphreys

This is an excerpt from my book Liber8 your Business: The revolutionary business planning technique that will set every small business owner free. It’s such an important point when it comes to building a valuable, saleable business, I thought I’d share it in today’s blog:

How to command a premium price when selling your business:

Your reputation may get you noticed but by a potential buyer but it won’t get you that premium price. Business is business, at the end of the day. And once the buyer has made their approach, their focus will quickly switch from appearance to substance. They will have three words buzzing round their head from the minute they start looking at the inside of your business. Their focus is Return On Investment (ROI).

The sooner you demonstrate your company’s ability to make acceptable future profits, the closer you will come to sealing the deal you want. If you are serious about selling your business, your business plan should have clear goals for ‘locked in’ forward revenues – money committed to the business for a reasonable future period. A buyer will look at your turnover/profits from past years. They will probably find them interesting and give encouraging nods and praise how well you have done. But they really want to know what’s going to happen next. What profits can they expect when they own the business? You need to convince them their investment is as risk free as possible And the best way is to show them the amount of income that is ‘locked in’.

Planning for forward revenues

How do you lock in future income? You need clients who have committed to buy for an agreed period in advance.

Sign them for the future

When I sold my advertising agency, a primary attraction for the buyer was the knowledge my key clients had signed three-year contracts, agreeing to a set amount of spending with the agency for each of those years. The buyer could see the worth of the future business they were buying and not just on projections based on past performance. The contracts significantly lessened the risk of losing those customers and their revenue streams.

Contracts

Most of us don’t want to sign contracts. We much prefer the freedom of taking our business where we want, and when we want. To convince your customers to sign contracts for future business, you’ll need to construct an attractive proposition that offers benefits in return for their commitment. For many businesses an effective way to do this is to create ‘packages’ whereby you offer a customer a pre-determined level of service for a set fee each month. You can also have a tiered approach to packages, so customers can choose from a range of different monthly fees depending on the level of servicing or type of products they want included in their plan. A tiered package plan could look something like this:

Starter	Small	Medium	Large
List features included	List additional features	List additional features	List additional features

From $125 per month	From $245 per month	From $450 per month	From $850 per month

The benefits of signing onto a monthly plan should be made very apparent to customers. Typically you would have a higher hourly rate for those not on plans and over time be able to demonstrate to a client how they are better off with a set fee than running up ad hoc charges.

Memberships

A popular method of locking in projected income is the membership model. It’s a more subtle and often complicated approach to secure forward sales, but it can be done. Gyms have been doing it for years. A common tactic for them is holding annual fees at the level of foundation membership – in other words, as long as you don’t take away your patronage, you avoid price increases. Loyalty cards are a simpler version – think of the cafes that create a sense of membership by giving you a card that entitles you to a free coffee after so many visits. The smart café operators quickly learn the percentage of customers who return to use the cards.

Keeping customers loyal and restricting churn can be time-consuming but if you can show your potential buyer you have repeat customers, and can quantify it, they’ll see extra value in your business.

Remember! A buyer wants future earnings, not past performance.

Avoid one-off sales

A business based on one-off sales is destined for hard work, not only for its daily survival but also when it comes to finding a buyer. In my advertising days, I came across many design companies that worked mostly on a project basis, designing a brand identity for a client and then struggling to get exclusivity on future projects. As an advisor to such companies these days, I always ask them to think of ways to lock clients into contracts – whether it’s for services (such as providing web hosting) or through methods of payment (monthly retainers, for instance).

The traditional retail model accepts that future earnings will be based on past performance and projected growth modelling. Most shop owners still seem happy for a customer to buy an item and walk away. But a buyer will still pay more for guaranteed earnings or, at least, income that is based on more than random chance. Having a decent database of customers, with information on how much they spend and when, is better than telling a prospective buyer you know nothing about where you money comes from. Imaginative retailers come up with clever ways to encourage repeat business. If you’re in retail, put some effort into finding a concept that suits your business and it’ll pay dividends.

LIBER8ING EXERCISE: THINK ABOUT FUTURE EARNINGS

Whatever type of business you have, take a few minutes to think of its future earnings. Do you already have a way of securing future revenue? If not, what could it be? How could you build a base of guaranteed future earnings from your clients to increase the value of your business to a potential buyer? Could you re-design your offering into ‘packages’ so that customers sign up for a monthly fee?

Excerpt from Liber8 your Business: The revolutionary planning technique that will set every business owner free. Purchase the book here www.Amazon.com