Selling Tips for the Small Business Owner

Costco Connection, the monthly magazine of the warehouse club Costco, has a very interesting article entitled"Tips from the Top: Selling for the Non-Salesperson" in their January issue. The article is a collection of tips from the top sales guru. While most we already know, it is also useful to be reminded of them again:

• Selling is about helping your clients
• Listen to your customers: they will tell you how to make them successful and grow your business
• Tell everyone you know what you do: referrals can come from the most unlikely sources
• Customers don't want to be sold: so stop selling and start solving the customer's problems, needs and wants
• To be successful in sales, learning to operate outside this comfort zone is a must!
• One of the most common mistakes people make when presenting is being too informative versus being persuasitve
• To close more sales and have more satisfied customers, business people must understand what their prospects want.
• The greatest weakness of businesspeople today is that they are product centered, not people oriented.