SELLING FOR SMALL BUSINESS – IT’S DIFFERENT.  REALLY.

A while back, I was talking to a salesperson that I know who sells for a small business.  This business is a wholesale distributor of B2B products, and those products are manufactured by a nationally known, Highly Branded Company (you’d know it immediately if I typed the name – let’s call them HBC for brevity). He had been struggling with appointment setting, and was anxious to tell me about his new approach.

He calls his prospect, and says, “This is (name) with HBC, and I’m calling because…”  I had to have him repeat himself, but it was as I thought.  He was representing himself as an employee for the HBC, rather than a distributor of HBC.  When I asked him about it, he explained that by representing himself this way, he didn’t have to educate his prospect on what he does.  While that makes a certain kind of logic, there’s a big problem with this approach, and in that big problem there are some answers for those of you who sell for small businesses.

The problem is simple.  The salesperson is LYING.  Not stretching the truth, not fudging, not spinning.  He’s LYING.  If someone were to call HBC looking for him (and in fact, there is an office of HBC in his town), they wouldn’t know him from Adam.  He doesn’t work for HBC, doesn’t get a paycheck from HBC, and if HBC wanted him to represent them, they’d have hired him.

The fact is that our biggest asset is trust – the trust we establish with our customers, our prospects, and our employers.  When the very first thing you tell your customers is a lie, how do you expect to maintain that trust?  Simple:  You can’t.

Of course, there’s still that problem of selling for small business.  Small business selling is different, because unless you’re selling for a franchise, you don’t have branding working for you.  In fact, one of the first things you have to do when selling for small business is to educate your prospect on what it is that you do, and why you do it well.  Let’s face it:  That’s a burden that salespeople for HBC’s like Xerox, UPS, or Coca-Cola never really have to cross.  It’s even tougher when you’re a small business salesperson selling against HBC’s.  Let’s talk about some ways to bridge that gap:

Less is more when it comes to introductions. We already know that salespeople for HBC’s don’t have to expend words on “what we do.”  You should work on a “what you do” statement that is powerful, yet concise. If you can’t sum up how you help your customers in one concise sentence, you need to revise your introduction.  Don’t feel that you have to give your prospects and customers a full education on the telephone; focus on getting them interested enough to see you.

Let the buying experience be your edge. HBC’s and other large corporations are perceived (rightly in some cases, wrongly in others) as impersonal and uncaring.  Differentiate yourself by the quality of your buying experience.  Take the time to get to know your customer rather than overloading him with meaningless information about your product.  Make yourself the difference.

Don’t use “underdog” selling. One of the approaches I hate the most is the “We’re the underdog, and that’s why you should buy from us.”  It’s the sales equivalent of begging for a mercy kiss.  If you position yourself as the underdog, your customer will assume that there’s a reason for your underdog status; namely, you’re not very good at what you do.  Always sell based on your higher ability to help your customers, and back it up with testimonials.

Your company history is probably meaningless to your customer. The most overused paper in the world of selling is the “Company History” page that leads roughly 80% of the proposals issued.  Here’s the truth:  If your prospect really cares how long your company has been in business and who owns it, they’ll ask.  If they don’t ask, don’t bore them to tears with fifteen minutes on the wonderful 30-year history of your company.

“Agent of” is a great phrase. I started this article with an example of a salesperson that I know who sells for small business.  Although representing himself as an employee of the HBC is completely wrong, it’s perfectly OK to say, “I work for XYZ company, an authorized agent of HBC.”  That conveys what he does concisely to his prospect while being completely truthful.

Having been involved in small business selling for most of my 17 years in sales, I can tell you that small businesses can compete with, and beat the pants off of, the big boys.  But it has to be done truthfully and in ways that focus on what your buyer wants, and less on what you want.