Rainmakers and Expert Salespeople on the Secrets of Sales Excellence

The RainMaker Maker

Professional Sales Expert and Sales Coach
on Sales Training, Sales Skills, Prospecting, Networking, Qualifying, Closing, Systems.....

(With occasional "guest appearances" by an Expert with something important to say!)

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Rick Roberge

Entrepreneurs

This entry was posted on 4/3/2007 9:38 PM and is filed under uncategorized.

One of the cool things about blogging is that you get to "meet" and interact with bloggers from "away". I know that I have regular readers on the west coast, in Canada, England, Australia, Romania and a few other interesting places. I also have "friends" that I read regularly. Sometimes just to expand my mind. Sometimes to get involved.

John is one of those "friends". A while back, he posted Putting the Customer at Ease (Redux). You can read his post and my comment. Today he posted again. I love the title. "JohnOnSales vs. the RainmakerMaker".

By coincidence, Dave Kurlan, Brian Halligan, Mark Roberge and I have been discussing whether or not entrepreneurs are, in fact, prospective clients for David Kurlan & Associates. The jury is out. We all agree that they need it, but how do we help them realize that they do?

OK, pretend that you're an entrepreneur. What do you want to hear?

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4/4/2007 5:40 AM Dave Kurlan wrote:
Rick, you sure pushed John's envelope and it caused him to really consider and accept what you said. Nice work!
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4/4/2007 7:21 AM Joseph Kupstas wrote:
Very interesting blog. I myself own and operate a remodeling / construction company, But really consider myself an entrepreneur because my business partner and I own multiple different businesses. We own the construction company, A real estate development company, a sports marketing & promotions company, a website hosting and building company that also runs www.networcester.com and just sold a company we owned which was a Hair Salon in Worcester that we owned for 2 years. When we signed up for the Dave Kurlan training I was attending the training solely to learn to sell to my construction customers but found that the training works in all the companies. As an entrepreneur I really enjoy the sales training but have found myself more loving the stories and listening to all the different companies that are attending the training and hearing about the problems they face in selling their products and services. The problems all sound the same in all the different cases. I think the training is good for all sales but entrepreneur's for sure need to work on there main selling problems with one company through the training and than apply it to the other companies. It has worked for me so far. But I can see where this question of are entrepreneur's right for the training and my answer is think 100% yes!! My opinion Thanks
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4/4/2007 8:23 AM John Newland wrote:
Frankly, I think many of your services are a little too advanced for the normal entrepreneurial startup. People without a sales background need to get kicked around a little before they start to realize that selling is a learned skill that they need to learn. Also, small startups tend not to have the kind of funding available to support a salesforce development program. In order to offer the most help to an entrepreneur, you would want to catch them early, so you can teach them to include (or design-in) "sell-ability" into their offering - we all know it can be pretty hard to put sellability into a product or service after its been created. Finally, the real money is in companies (I would guess) with salesforces of 5-20 salesfolk. Working with a company where the only salesguy is the owner doesn't provide (on the surface) as large of a revenue base. On the other hand, your combination of testing and tools would be perfect for the entrepreneur who needs to sell. Its just that it's fishing for minnows instead of whales.

Anyway, to answer your question:
"You know that in order for your business to succeed, you have to sell. You don't know how, and you're afraid to fail at it. We provide the training, tools and support that you need to be successful in selling". At least that will be the basis of my pitch....xoxoxo johnonsales
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4/5/2007 9:49 AM Adam Winter wrote:
entrepreneurs come in many shapes and sizes. they are different from normal salespeople because they have more on their plate and at risk. on one hand they need the help more, on the other hand they have to oversee all business aspects (sales, marketing, service, advertising, operations, etc).

you need to ask - what prompted them to become an entrepreneur, you need to look at their background. some have a sales background and can appreciate the help you can offer, others may be technical and need to get bumped and bruised to understand the value of your experience.

so the answer to your question is - "It depends."

Once I get to know you better I can offer a better answer.
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