The Savvy Entrepreneur

During my interview with Kevin Boyle, author of The Secrets to Sales Mastery, he shared the 5 elements that every entrepreneur and sales person needs to master in order to build relationships and make yourself attractive to potential clients.

Here they are:

1. Attitude (aka: Become a networking resource). People who complain that networking doesn’t work for them because they aren’t getting any business have the wrong attitude. The basic premise for your entire business is to help others. When you go to a networking function, your sole purpose it to help others — give without expectation of what you will receive.

Kevin suggests using this conversation starter:

Hi. My name is ______. What would make a great business referral for you?

Notice the difference in people’s reactions to you. They will perk up when you approach them, “you’ll become the honey that attracts the bees.”

When sitting down with people tell them:

I really care about my clients and I love helping people, especially when it comes to you having the success you deserve in your business. Tell me, what are some of the challenges you’re having right now? I might actually be able to connect you to someone who could really help you.

When you say something like that — and it has to be your genuine attitude — you have just changed the dynamic of how you do business and how you become a magnet… You are now a valuable resource to everyone in that room.

2. Building rapport (aka: Sell yourself and the relationship NOT your product or service).  “Money doesn’t grow on trees, it comes from people.” If you want to be an effective salesperson, you must improving the way you relate to people (oh yeah, you can cross out the title on your business card and replace it with ‘Salesperson’ — see point #4 below).

Building rapport means being genuinely interested in other people (I like to say be interested, not interesting.)

When your goal is to build rapport first, you have a major advantage over those who don’t — You now have a great reason to follow up!

3. Confidence (aka: Never give up). One of the biggest problems Kevin finds with those who are struggling with sales is that they do what’s easy and comfortable, instead of doing what leads them to success in their business — Cold calling is the big one!

In Kevin’s 15 years of sales experience, and contrary to what other ’sales experts’ are saying, sales is a numbers game — you never know what lies beyond the next door, what opportunity awaits you. So don’t be afraid to pick up the phone or knock on doors.

Building confidence will help you step outside of your comfort zone and do things you may not necessarily want to do.

4. Desire (aka: You are the best and only option). This is the part where Kevin convinced all who were on the call that, despite what our business card title is, it really should read as Salesperson.

If you’re struggling with your business or you need to more income, what do you need? To increase sales! How do you do that? By getting more sales!

For the past decade, selling has been pretty easy, but things are a lot harder now so you need to, first and foremost, be a salesperson in your business.

You increase your sales by sharing your intense desire to help others and then make yourself know as the best option money can buy.

5. Expertise (aka: People like to spend their money with the best). Consumers are very cautious, so being a perceived expert is not good enough anymore. You need to BE the expert and put yourself out there as the expert in your field.

Why would someone spend their money on someone they don’t see as an expert? Show your expertise and don’t be modest about calling yourself an expert!

So, there you have it — the 5 elements to selling yourself effectively, per Kevin Boyle, as shared during his interview with me!

Stay tuned tomorrow, as I share with you Kevin’s sales secret #2.