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Here’s what’s worked for me doing 7-figures in web design/dev sales: 1) Confidence. That only comes from knowing your product/service inside and out, you can’t
by awb 5y ago
Here’s what’s worked for me doing 7-figures in web design/dev sales:
1) Confidence. That only comes from knowing your product/service inside and out, you can’t learn confidence IMO.
2) Caring. It helps a ton if you genuinely care about your clients. Making some connection about kids, sports, books, etc. goes a long way. They start seeing you as a friend and you’re typically much more forgiving of your friends, which inevitably comes in handy at some point. Read the room though and if the client gives you short answers, move on to business talk. If they light up, keep conversing until there’s a natural break and transition back into business talk.
3) Reputation. A solid portfolio and written testimonials are huge. It’s worth it to pick up a cheap projects to get a good reference when you’re starting out.
4) Speed. Time is money. Write people back as soon as you read the email. My response times were sometimes only a few minutes and it impresses people and gives them confidence that they’re a priority for you.
5) Follow through. If you say you’ll get a proposal out by the end of the week, be willing to make sacrifices to meet that commitment if necessary.
6) Write super simple proposals. Your client cares about what they’ll pay and when it’ll be done and the scope of work. The rest is fluff, which isn’t bad, but make those 3 things front and center because that’s what they’ll be scanning for.
- runjake 5y ago> you can’t learn confidence IMO I completely disagree. Anyone can learn confidence by directly addressing their own shortcomings.
- muzani 5y agoI think that's what he meant by the following sentence. You can't learn confidence by training your ego, it's based on your understanding of your product (and competitors).
- russelldjimmy 5y agoSome people are just looking for something to disagree with
- hurflmurfl 5y agoI disagree
- awb 5y agoI guess my point is that I’m confident about web design/dev because I have decades of experience in it. I wouldn’t be confident in real estate sales because I don’t know the industry. In other words, confidence without experience is just arrogance or naïveté IMO.
- clairity 5y agoresearch (as learned in mba school) indicates that two qualities correlate to sales success: empathy and ego/competitiveness. the first relates to your points about caring and simple proposals. the second relates to confidence, speed, and follow-through (you want to score points and win). selling is not that hard for most analytical-types if viewed as problem-solving where problems can be creatively coerced to look nail-like for your product/service hammer (not being off-putting helps too).
- awb 5y agoYes, problem solving is a great interpretation of how I approached sales.
- pgwhalen 5y agoI have no experience in sales, but as someone who has been sold many things, the list seems really correct to me.
- perl4ever 5y ago>Your client cares about what they’ll pay and when it’ll be done and the scope of work So...what is up with the people who write an agreement for providing services with a price and no details about the work or when it will be done? And then it's like pulling teeth to find out what they will do and what exact equipment is included? I read in various places all sorts of rules for doing business the right way, and I think, yeah, that sounds obvious, and then in the real world it largely doesn't seem to be practiced.
- awb 5y agoYeah, I’m not sure either. Maybe it’s because they’re rushing and not thinking it through or don’t want to take the time to plan the project out or maybe because they want it to be vague for some reason like billing for this project planning instead of doing it for free up front.
- tarsinge 5y agoI do both types depending on projects and customers. Some want detailed specs to be reassured, other are ok with Agile like trust us to do the best.
- jesterson 5y agoIt's funny how you didn't mention the product quality at all. Perhaps it's modern way to choose a product based on how sales person makes you feel vs. cutting the bs and assessing the product qualities.