Question of the Month: I don’t have an experienced salesperson on staff. How can I grow my business?

by Shannon F.
small-business

Many of our clients are small business owners and managers who already have too many responsibilities. How can they find the time and resources to drive business growth? We came up with a list of suggestions for business owners who want to find more customers without making the leap to hiring a full-time salesperson. While we broke these suggestions down by job title, anybody can pitch in where needed – that’s the beauty of our simple sales and marketing strategy.

Intern: A summer sales intern can help develop your online presence, update your records, and reach out to prospects. Below are some business development tasks that interns can assist with:

 
• Have your intern go through a leads list and connect with prospects on social media platforms (like Linkedin) on your behalf, offering them something for free like a whitepaper or webinar invitation.

 
• Your intern can go through and confirm/update prospect email addresses, then send out an email campaign with information about your service.

 

Administrative Assistant: Build several hours of business development tasks into your administrative person’s weekly schedule. Administrative assistants and receptionists already have phone skills, so it shouldn’t be hard to transition them to “soft selling.”

 
• Have your administrative assistant go through a leads list and make introductory calls while sending corresponding emails. It’s easy to do this from a prospect management program like InsightPRM, and the calls only have to be a few seconds long: “Hi Jim, I just emailed you a helpful article from my CEO, Rita Jones from Speedy Movers. If you’re planning an office move, you should find this useful.”

 
• Administrative assistants can set appointments with web leads. They know everyone’s schedule, and they likely understand the nature of your service well enough to have a brief initial conversation with a prospect, taking note of any questions for you to answer later.

 

Project Manager: This person spends a lot of time traveling to various job sites, so he or she should be prepared to make drop-ins.

 
• Prior to visiting a job site, Project Managers should take a few minutes to research prospects in the area (your lead management software should let you search by zip or town). They can then drop by with information, saying, “We’re working with a local business to upgrade their phone system. I just wanted to make you aware of our service and find out if I could answer any questions. How about I leave this information but drop back next Thursday at noon to perform a fifteen-minute estimate?”

 

Executive: Owners and executives are usually the most well-connected people in a small business, so they should take time each week to build new connections and make/ask for introductions.

 
• When you get new leads, check Linkedin to see if you have any contacts at each prospect company. Grow your Linkedin account to the point where, even if you don’t know anybody, you at least have a 2nd degree connection who can introduce you to the desired contact.

 
• Develop content to share. For example, start a blog or produce a whitepaper sharing your knowledge of your industry, with the goal of helping business owners learn about the product or service you offer. You may wish to have a staff member or contractor do the legwork for you, but you should be involved in producing prospect-facing materials that include your signature wisdom. This is what your intern or administrative person will send out to prospects.

Want a personalized plan for how you can grow your business without a full-time salesperson? Contact us to learn more.

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