To reach your true potential as a sales representative, you need to be fully aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Once you’ve committed to taking responsibility for your results, the next step is to be proactive in achieving them. If you expect to be successful as a sales representative, you need to be willing to take action consistently and definitively

I think having a pre-defined sales strategy is a must.

The advantage with the SMEs is there are generally few decision makers,
mostly the Owners or Directors. Many times when interacting with a person
from SME, one would hear that he has to take the approval from
director. Hence connecting directly with the directors can help in getting
inputs to understand right product that can fit their needs & lesser time
taken in decision making.

Also SMEs would frequently say they are small, have low budget, generate
lesser revenue then big corporates i.e. they are more price focused.
Hence companies can make available options with lesser features which
can be priced lower such as customized options which can
help them choose the product with the specific features fulfilling
their requirements rather than buying products with all features.

SMEs as you have pointed out today is the biggest segment for business in India..As a sales organisation one should understand that as such the process to target SMEs or for that matter any other business remains the same with a bit of changes..

Toady SMEs especially in service industry are no more the unorganised industry that one normally associates with them ..In last decade or so they have become very organised and professional..Hence the most important thing is to have professinal approcah towards them when planning to target them..

Now based on my experience would share 2-3 points when planning to taget this market segment..

1. Quality is fine but we need to have some cost effective product/services designed especially keeping them in mind.

2. Expect them to negotiate a lot hence training the sales team well and prepare beforehand or have some buffer on pricing to negotiate..Rest assured it will please them more than having a conventional approach of being ethically product/service priced cos not believing in negotiating. You are going to pushed back by your competition there.

3. Rather than being very perseverante have strategy to play in volumes..In case of SMEs I always suggest my team members to reach out to more prospects rather wasting time in 1 or two clients reason being contratry to Enterprise & big business houses..in SMEs mostly there is one decision maker and he already has heard you hence there is no point in keep on bothering him because of unwanted f/w ups..Rest assured he already has made his decision and will let you know when time comes..Hence try to reach out at least 20-25 customers everyday to succeed in this market.

4.Finally if possible identify your sales personals..have a seprate team for this business..I would put my best sales guys here as you expect to have more challenging & demanding clients in this business..

Happy Sales

Since SMEs is a segment which is in a developing phase.. they seek the maximum returns on their investments, thus the best strategy is to offer them a service or product which can give them the maximum returns..

Same is applicable with service Industry.. after understanding their exact target market and requirements, offer them a service/product and justify it like they can foresee the benefits of procuring it.

Some SME special packages can also be designed to match their requirements.

Best way to get business from SMEs is by providing best services at lowest prices.

What do we need to do to get business from the SME , the biggest segment for any product / services