Marketing should be known as, and synonymous to, relationship management. When a potential, or existing, client calls you, your answers to his questions can make or break a deal. If you don’t have the answer, you need to find it. If you don’t have the time, you need to make it. Be willing to work that much harder for your client: even if you aren’t the biggest, the client needs to know that you are most committed to their success. Commitment is their key.
When trying to sell some sort of product, the best entrepreneurs are focused on the goal, they are focused on the why that drives them to connect to customers. It is not the how that one must be concerned with, but only their why. There is no right or wrong way to sell: all you need is passion and enthusiasm for your product. Even if you do not know the answer to a question, your drive to promptly find the answer will be what impacts the client, not the initial stutter. This passion will ignite the minds of your potential client, facilitating connections, and connections between will be made. Your passion and enthusiasm for your product will be what encourages the sale—not the rote duplication of someone else’s selling system. Reach out to as many different people in as many different ways, with as much energy as you can, and discover what feels comfortable for you. What you do to sell and promote your business has to be a reflection of what you are already willing to stay up late for and get up early for. It has to connect to your why and be a part of your own experience.
Always keep in mind: entrepreneurs are their own companies. Selling and marketing the company is personality driven. With this hugely personal element, one finds it an impossibility to adopt the methods of another. Don’t try to sound like someone else. Take advantage of your personality! Use the force of your person—in the early stages, this will take the form of a personal guarantee from you to the prospect. Be who you are and use that to sell.
In order for you to become a successful entrepreneur, it is essential that you are the person who is willing to pick up the phone and call people to talk about making deals and doing business. The phone is a simple, powerful and flexible tool that easily adapts to your personality and your why for starting a business. It is one of the most uncomplicated, cost-effective, measurable strategies available to you. When you make this phone call, make sure you are absolutely certain about the product that you are selling. With this certainty, you can use confidence to build up a network of contacts. The network cannot be established overnight—it is going to take a lot of phone calls. You cannot just wave your magic wand over a corporation and change them into a profitable client.
The idea of reaching out and talking to people about what you do must excite you! If you are not excited and looking forward to Monday, then you have not found your why and are not ready to become a successful entrepreneur. Your why should motivate you to chat with people: talk to them about what they do and allow the conversation to change directions and come to what you do. Who knows whom you can make connections with on the airplane, in the bar, at the racquet club. Make conversation!
To satisfy your drive to become a fearless and successful entrepreneur, these are the things you must do. Find out why you are doing what you are doing—what your motivation, your driving force is. Stick to your own style as it is only your personality that you can sell. Finally, talk! Call people on the phone; make connections in your social life. You will be surprised to see how any discomfort decreases as your client network base increases in direct proportion to your profits.
Take your time: the most successful men and women in the end are those who have come upon success as result of steady accretion. Step-by-step, network becoming wider and wider—progressively advancing your product, your field, your corporation—preserving in what you know is practical and what you know works, and concentrating on this. Follow this and find success in the greatest degree.
Robert Tuchman is the author of “Young Guns: The Fearless Entrepreneur’s Guide to Chasing Your Dreams and Breaking Out on Your Own”. Tuchman believes there is no better time to start a business then when you are youthful, bold and have little to lose…he knows from experience. After a brief stint job hunting Tuchman founded Tuchman Sports Enterprises (TSE) which within 2 years was named to INC’s 500 list of America’s fastest growing privately held companies. He then sold it for millions to Premier Global Sports, TSE did $70 million in sales last year.
