Information is power

You ARE going to have to sell and market - everyone does. McDonald's and Starbucks did, Rolls-Royce did. You ARE going to have to do it. Think about that for a second, because only about 10% of us can do it. If you can sell, why aren't you doing it already? If you cannot do it, then your business will go nowhere.
Of course, this doesn't mean face-to-face. it can mean e-mail, or other distance selling and marketing. It can mean using an online persona to market 'on your behalf', but behind everything you do will reflect on you, so prepare yourself now that it will have to be done. It doesn't have to be painful, though. If you are starting out look at Sales as a game with other targets to meet other than selling. This will make the process not only easier, but even enjoyable for all of you shy entreprenuers out there.

You have to know first of all that even if you don't think that you can b 'sold to', you can and you are every second of the day. Get used to that fact and look at every possible moment that you hand over money to someone else - you have been sold.

Last weekend, my wife and I went shopping. It's a weekly chore that millions of people do every week. It's your own free will to do it, and you go where you want to, not where you are told to, right? wrong!

You go to that Mall, because it is close to you, and that is a sales job that has been done to everyone, not just you. Everyone in your neighborhood goes there because they have been sold on it.

My wife went to look at the 'posh frock' shop, because she saw a sale sign and wanted to see if a dress she had previously tried on was now a lower price. The dress, the sale, the timing and the poster are all sales techniques. I went for a Starbucks, becuase I hate the 'guy' chair in those places. So completely sold, it is untrue! I went to Starbucks because I wanted a coffee? No,because I haveSbeen conditioned to go to a coffee store, and to that chain in particular.
Then it was on to Safeway, because it's only next door and is huge, meaning we can make as few a stop as possible: Because they almost seemed to know what we wanted. We were not only sold to go there, we are sold on what to buy!

Sales is simply the gathering of information to ensure that you can offer the best product or service in the shortest possible times. if you knew where a line of people were right now that wanted a red widget - you would buy them,m go there,m and sell to them, right? So make it happen.

When you talk to someone, make it a game. The winner is the one that asks the most questions, the one that comes away with the most information about the other. The questions you need answering are about your service or product, what they want to know is what it will do, why they should have it and how much it costs. This puts you in control, because you know what they are going to ask at some point. This is your assignment. How many times a day do you hand over money? What information is being collected from you, and how does it answer your questions?

Be sure on one point, though: Behind of all these questions is a real person. You have to stand behind your product, and be happy to be doing what you are doing. If you are not, you will not make a sale, because people will not trust you. This is true of either face-to-face, or distance sales. Sooner or later, it comes down to you. Before you start, take a real hard look at your business plan, and be sure that you are ready to not only stand behind it, but to stand for it.
Create your question list, and learn when and how to use them. Then you can sell anyone, anytime on anything. Get their personal information to create a freindship as part of the 'game'.
It takes about 7 touches before a sale is confirmed so be ready to create and strengthen a freindship between introduction and sale. You will learn to talk a lot, say the right things at the right time, and enjoy your sales experience. oh...you will make MONEY TOO.

Mindset: 6 months, 1 week, and 4 days from now

God, How I hate that word! When I was starting out, this is all I ever heard. It prefaced every argument and conversation. I couldn't get a single piece of information without listening to someone question my staying power, and positive mindset.

In one incredibly 'Kafa-esque' episode, I couldn't post on a forum to get answers to similar responses because I was being too negative, and didn't have a positive angle to my question. Considering that my question was about how to get feedback, because I wasn't getting any, there wasn't a way to actually sound 'solution-driven', because I couldn't get assistance in getting my foot on the very first rung of the ladder. Frustrating wasn't the word for how I felt. It was as if having access to the Web had itself become a hindrance.

The question has to be asked, though, and you are the only person that can answer it to your own satisfaction. You have found the gap in the marketplace, and have found the opportunity to fill it. Now comes the tough question to answer: Can you do it? If the question of financial funding isn't tough enough to face, you then have to find the reason WHY you want to do it. Let's go into that a little deeper.

If you have realised that you have something else to offer society, rather than simply earning a salary helping someone else out - known as hiring yourself out for the lowest possible amount to receive the highest workload possible and have someone else get wealthy on the results - then the question you have to answer is this: Do I have what it takes to get to the end of the journey. Because along with opportunity comes responsibility, and if you cannot face the latter, the former is a wasted exercise. No matter how you feel today, amid all of the certainty that this is for you, tempered by the excitement you feel about actually starting to do this, how are you going to feel 6 months, 1 week, and 4 days from now? On that day, you will have to feel the same. You may also be in exactly the same situation you are today, or even worse - you could owe a lot of money, and be honour bound to continue with your new business, already hating both the daily grind, and the decision to go ahead with it in the first place.

Put another way: If you hate life now because the only motivation you have in your life is to get up because you need the money, you may be faced with that every single day, and have added the responsibility of earning it yourself. Now you not only have to roll that boulder uphill, a few weeks or months from now, you will be doing it alone, without the Corporation to lean on. The answer to this is research and information.

You may have gone through an exhausting search to find the business you decided on, and learned a lot about being an entrepreneur along the way. The time spent now researching yourself will pay off in the future. It isn't the product or service you chose that will make things easier for you - it is the certainty in your own success that will. No matter how long it takes, the sacrifices you have to make, the ever changing schedule for success, you have to keep going. Only you can answer these questions. There are books and other tools from a whole host of people telling how they 'made it', and all of them state that they went through hard times to get there. What they won't tell you is how to actually do it, other than persevering, and that is what you have to have: The ability to keep going knowing that the business idea you have had is right, AND you are the right person in the right place at the right time to do it.

While you get up every morning, and feel good about the decision you have made to do this, you have to know that the struggle to get there has to be just as enjoyable as the end result you have in mind. Running your own business means being an accountant, to ensure that every penny spent has some kind of payoff for the business. You have to be in charge of Sales and Marketing, and have the desire to stand up and be seen as the spokesperson of this business. You have to be the CEO, and to make the decision necessary to keep going, change your expenditure, be honest with the Accountant and the Sales Manager about how it is all going, and you have to ask for help from everyone to make some tough decisions.

While you have being doing exercises where every single aspect of the business plan has been ripped apart, parsed, and coldly looked at, the next step is the toughest one of all.
You have to start again with the same exercise, and do it to yourself: About 10% of the population can sell, and that includes being the centre of attention and being proud of what you are doing. Only about 15% of the population can be an accountant without having the years of practice to get there. Can you do it? If you aim to be as successful as a member of the Fortune 500, then that is only a drop in the bucket compared to all business owners out there, not including the 70% or so of all businesses that fail within 5 years. Altogether that puts you in a certain 1% of the population: Not the most talented, not the most committed, or the most creative. It is a mix of all of these and more that matters, but most of all perseverance. Most of all it requires standing in the shower 6 months, 1 week and 4 days from now, looking forward to getting to work, and not being as pissed off at life as you are now.

Mark your calender, and let's see how you feel.