1. Know your customer (geography, industry etc; their revenue segment; CTO or CMO or CEO etc). Selling to a CMO of an e-com making $100mio in Europe is different from selling to a CTO of startup in healthcare in Canada. When they finished talking to you on the first call, they should feel this guy told me more than I knew in my business; he was able to articulate what I was thinking. If you leave them with that thought, most probably they will come back to you to sign on the dotted line.
2. Speak in conferences that interests your customers. If you are a techie, default attraction is to speak in tech conferences. Unless you are selling to CTOs or VP(Engineering), none of your customers come there. You shouldn't just participate in these conferences where your customer's come. You should be a speaker. Speakers have a certain authority and your customers will crowd to that awesome speaker of the conference. It might only generate lead, but it will be a strong, qualified lead. From sales point of view, these conferences will give a pretty good idea of what matters to your customers.
3. Find the decision maker as quickly as possible and speak to them rather than wasting time with gate-keepers who can say no but not yes. Decision maker is the one who writes the cheque or the sponsor of the project or who can say yes as well as no. Decision maker need not be a CEO all the time.
4. Roleplay sales calls. Record these roleplays and keep improving your tone, words, tempo everything. You should be able to establish quickly why you, why now, and why at the price point you mention.
5. In every step of the journey, they should see value in interacting with you. As often as the prospect says, "of all the agencies I'm talking to, you folks come with depth and present with structure", it is better for you. Even if they don't close because of price, they will come back to you.
6. Make them smile during the sales call. There are many ways to do it. They will forget what you told them, but they will never forget how you made them feel. If you make them feel good, they will come back. At the least, they will refer you to others.
7. As a techie, you might have dealt with logic and deterministic outcomes. Sales is emotional and probabilistic. Get used to it. It is not easy.
Finally, good luck.
(P.S: If interested you can read what I wrote about: Mastering sales as a CTO: https://jjude.com/cto-sales/; it is not as agency owner, but I get on sales calls for an IT services company. So probably we are closer in that sense).
2. Speak in conferences that interests your customers. If you are a techie, default attraction is to speak in tech conferences. Unless you are selling to CTOs or VP(Engineering), none of your customers come there. You shouldn't just participate in these conferences where your customer's come. You should be a speaker. Speakers have a certain authority and your customers will crowd to that awesome speaker of the conference. It might only generate lead, but it will be a strong, qualified lead. From sales point of view, these conferences will give a pretty good idea of what matters to your customers.
3. Find the decision maker as quickly as possible and speak to them rather than wasting time with gate-keepers who can say no but not yes. Decision maker is the one who writes the cheque or the sponsor of the project or who can say yes as well as no. Decision maker need not be a CEO all the time.
4. Roleplay sales calls. Record these roleplays and keep improving your tone, words, tempo everything. You should be able to establish quickly why you, why now, and why at the price point you mention.
5. In every step of the journey, they should see value in interacting with you. As often as the prospect says, "of all the agencies I'm talking to, you folks come with depth and present with structure", it is better for you. Even if they don't close because of price, they will come back to you.
6. Make them smile during the sales call. There are many ways to do it. They will forget what you told them, but they will never forget how you made them feel. If you make them feel good, they will come back. At the least, they will refer you to others.
7. As a techie, you might have dealt with logic and deterministic outcomes. Sales is emotional and probabilistic. Get used to it. It is not easy.
Finally, good luck.
(P.S: If interested you can read what I wrote about: Mastering sales as a CTO: https://jjude.com/cto-sales/; it is not as agency owner, but I get on sales calls for an IT services company. So probably we are closer in that sense).