By: Joshua Feinberg

When you begin talking about a small business networking upgrades, prospects and clients will often dwell on cost. They neglect to consider the soft costs of not properly investing in a network, such as lost employee productivity when imprudent corners are cut, downtime when fault-tolerance is an afterthought, and service costs from computer consultants when difficult-to-support or "dead-end" solutions are selected primarily because of their low price tag.

Addressing Client Objections

No matter how thorough your initial consultation, IT audit, site survey and network design reports, some client objections may pop up just before you get the client’s authorization to proceed with small business networking. One relatively minor concern might threaten to derail the entire sale, so you need to know how to overcome some of the biggest small business networking deal-closing obstacles.

Empowered with these strategies, you’ll be much less apt to get emotional, defensive, or just plain annoyed. You can then stay focused on keeping your eye on the ball and figuring out the best way to solve the prospect’s or future client’s problems - and of course, close the small business networking sale. Remember, your company isn’t in business to solve prospects’ problems; only those of paying clients.

Overcoming Apathy

If the decision-makers have an apathetic outlook toward the prospect of implementing small business networking, your decision-makers might take weeks, months, or perhaps even years before feeling a sense of urgency about your proposed network project. However, once you discover the roots of this apathy, you’ll have a better opportunity to push (or at least nudge) the approval process along.

The Bottom Line about Small Business Networking

Situations like catastrophic data loss, (though horrible tragedies for those affected) are great motivators for combating apathy. All of a sudden, the small business owner becomes extremely receptive to your suggestions about your proposed small business networking solution, which of course, features centralized security and data protection.

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