
Ask HN: How to make sales to companies? - ahmedaly
Hi..
I tried to find any books or training about how to sell products to companies and businesses, but I could not find any!<p>My products are designed for small businesses, and I'd like to know how can I drive sales, and what are the techniques to use?<p>Thanks so much in advance.
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bigsassy
I'm going to re-post a comment I made a long time ago. It should help you
generate a list of small business customers to contact:

A little off topic, but you should know there's a better way than the Yellow
Pages to find customers. The ReferenceUSA database will give you all the
companies in a given area that fall under the entered NAICS code. Here's a
small sample of the information you'll get:

* Business Name

* Address

* Contact Information

* Number of Employees

* Number of PCs

* Location Sales Volume (in dollars)

* Credit Rating Score

* Names of Management and their Titles

* $ spent on accounting

* $ spent on contract labor

* $ spent on advertising

And this information is all free to you thanks to your local public library.
It's pretty awesome if you ask me. Here's how to get access to it:

1) Get the NAICS code for the industry you're selling to. This code is used by
the government to classify businesses. <http://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/>

2) Go to your local library to access the ReferenceUSA online database. You
may even be able to do that through the library's website (I can through
mine).

3) Click on U.S. Businesses under Available Databases

4) Customer Search

5) Enter the NAICS code in one of the boxes at the bottom of Business Type ->
Keyword/SIC/NAICS.

------
SuperChihuahua
I think one book you might want to read is: "Selling in a new marketspace:
Getting Customers to Buy Your Innovative and Disruptive Products"

[http://www.amazon.com/Selling-New-Market-Space-
Innovative/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Selling-New-Market-Space-
Innovative/dp/0071636102)

One other book that is considered a classic is "Crossing the chasm"

[http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-Marketing-Disruptive-
Ma...](http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-Marketing-Disruptive-
Mainstream/dp/0060517123/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341939682&sr=1-1&keywords=crossing+the+chasm)

------
TMK
Collect a list of companies which might be interested in your product. Collect
their phone numbers and call them and try to sell it to them. Telemarketing
skills to work.

~~~
ahmedaly
This is exactly what I am going to do.. but I am still wondering how can I
increase the conversion rate? and what techniques to use to talk to the
decision maker directly in these companies?

