Nearly 70% of small business owners expect to grow their business this year. The best part: In order to do so, they need your help to overcome these three challenges.

1. Decreasing revenues: More than half of small business owners say the biggest challenge they face right now is finding ways to maintain or boost revenues in a down economy, according to Forbes’ U.S. Small Business Outlook 2010 survey. That means there’s a major opportunity for salespeople who have products or services that can help those companies boost business — and can quantify the average ROI businesses can expect to see from those products or services. Focus on any ways your products and services offer more value. But the real key is to create a sense of urgency by quantifying the “absence of value” — how much companies stand to lose every week and/or month they put off agreeing to the sale.
2. Customers paying slower (or not paying at all): More than 40% of businesses say one of their biggest challenges is getting customers to pay for the goods or services they’ve already delivered. Top salespeople capitalize on this by offering solutions that encourage their buyers’ customers to pay up sooner (or all at once). For example, suggest possible incentives (e.g., a future discount or free service calls) prospects can pass along to their customers in exchange for paying off debts. Most business prospects focus on consequences like interest and sending delinquent customers to collections. Salespeople who can partner with these prospects to suggest ways to spin customer debt into an opportunity to boost sales and loyalty are in a much better position to win business — and retain customers.
3. Escalating business expenses: The third major challenge prospects are facing has less to do with business expenses skyrocketing and more to do with having to make due with smaller budgets. The selling point for salespeople is making a connection between how their products and services will actually help prospects keep costs down – by saving time, energy, labor, resources … and any other things that can lighten budget constraints. Break it down into dollars and cents, so prospects can see how much money they’ll have left over to devote to other areas.

Here is the full list of cash flow challenges Forbes’ survey revealed high-level prospects are facing:

• Lower revenues — 51%
• Slow or non-paying customers — 41%
• Higher business expenses — 23%
• Longer sales cycles — 21%
• More discounting — 20%
• Losing loyal customers — 19%
• Taxes — 19%
• Rising healthcare costs — 18%
• Reduced sales pipeline — 16%
• Difficulty in securing financing — 11%
• Inability to take advantage of new business opportunities — 8%

Is there anything you can do (or are already) doing to help prospects overcome these challenges? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Tags: debts, economy, Forbes, healthcare costs, Small business outlook, survey