To Sell More, Answer These Questions

Many business owners fail to master basic sales concepts. Harvard Business School professor Howard Stevenson suggests ways to improve

By Karen E. Klein

The biggest problem small businesses have is selling, says Howard Stevenson, a serial entrepreneur, professor emeritus of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, and the author or editor of 11 books on entrepreneurship. “A lot of people are afraid of selling. I’ve tried to convince schools that selling is important, but try to find a course on sales management in a major university. It’s a hole in everybody’s practical education,” Stevenson says. In his new book, Getting to Giving, Stevenson poses four questions that he thinks entrepreneurs should use to inform their sales strategy and improve it.

1. Why is your product or service important to your customers? It sounds simplistic, but too many small business people never determine why a potential client approaches them, Stevenson says. If they don’t fundamentally understand the customer’s needs, they can’t be effective in fulfilling them. And don’t be surprised if even the customer doesn’t know what they truly are, he says.

“This is where you stop talking and start listening,” Stevenson says. “Someone who goes to a money manager may want to get a multiple of capital; others want intergenerational transfer of wealth. One customer at a stationery store wants commodity copier paper and another wants colored tissue. If you’re trying to sell cars, does the customer want to do long-distance travel or get parking in Cambridge?”

Once the customer understands what she needs, the small business owner can show her how his product fills that need. “And if it doesn’t, don’t waste their time,” Stevenson says.

2. Is your company well-managed? In today’s economic climate, one of the perceived drawbacks of doing business with a smaller company is that the customer is not sure the business will be around in six months, Stevenson says. Larger brands often gain an advantage because they can assure customers of their longevity, while small businesses lose out because people don’t like to deal with incompetent organizations.

That’s why small business owners must manage their companies and their employees as well or better than their larger competitors. “Fundamentally, good management is an intense focus on the customer and on serving your customers at a profit,” Stevenson says. He feels that many businesses have fallen down on customer service because in the end, it derives from a positive affiliation between the employee and the company that has been lost in recent years.

“I don’t think people trust the companies they work for anymore, and it’s probably for pretty good reasons,” he says. “It’s not exactly inspiring to say that you get up in the morning to maximize shareholder wealth. Too many business owners are focused on cutting costs and making people work harder, rather than serving their customers and doing better that way.”

A recent experience at a local lighting store illustrates his point, Stevenson says. A store clerk assured him that a particular fixture was in stock and would ship immediately. But after 10 days passed and two of his phone calls were ignored, Stevenson finally reached the clerk, who sheepishly admitted that the items were not in stock after all. “Rather than owning up and telling me he was wrong and suggesting another option, he just said I would get my order in January,” Stevenson recalls. “What’s to stop me from going online and ordering the fixtures from LightingDirect?”

3. How does your company make a difference in the lives of your customers? Fundamentally, small businesses must create a sense of connection to their customers and instill a sense of urgency in them. One way larger businesses create urgency is by lowering prices. “With a situation like Black Friday, where you’re using price to create urgency, that’s the most costly way of doing it,” Stevenson says.