What are the 3 Sales Essentials that make for effective selling?

By / / Communication, Prospecting, Sales Planning, Sales Skills, Sales Training

When we meet with leaders to discuss their sales challenges in achieving sales effectiveness we find that the source of their problems often stem from three key areas: sales planning, sales prospecting and effective sales communication with clients.

Whatever our vocation, we all need to make contact with and communicate effectively to secure the ongoing custom of members, supporters, sponsors or clients to make a living. Yet too many people still leave selling to chance. They do not have a robust sales process in place that works for them …

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Why selling is now a team sport

By / / Collaboration, Communication, Customer Service, Marketing, Procurement, Sales Relationships, Sales Training, Teamwork

Subjected to marketing and sales monologues for the better part of 40 years in the form of blanket advertising, product brochures and ‘your call is important to us’ busy signals, customers have taken the lead and are way ahead of us when it comes to having sales and marketing dialogues. Far more informed and sophisticated, and posting blogs, Facebook ‘Likes’, Tweets and reTweets, customers are engaging in their own sales and marketing dialogues about our products, our sales people, our promise, our customer service proposition and our brands, and they are affecting …

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Knowing your business

By / / Business Acumen, Communication, Procurement, Sales Relationships, Sales Research, Sales Skills, Sales Training

‘Knowing your business’ was voted as the Number 3 Sales Trends for 2011. With business becoming more complex it should come as no surprise that clients want to work with business people who can sell, think about possibilities and create a work partnership with their businesses. However, our studies with hundreds of sales professionals and middle management sales leaders reveal that the level of business knowledge and commercial acumen is poor or non-existent in many cases. Often trained on product but not on business practices, many sales teams are falling short in delivering …

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What are your relationships built on?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Ethics & Values, Self Development

If you are in business for the long haul then you know the value of building your business relationships on solid foundations. Too many times people have fallen foul of the broken promises and pipe dreams offered by those people whose only intention is to make money at your expense. I can recall a few incidents in my career where I have given people the benefit of the doubt only to be let down and in some very rare incidents, ripped off.

In sales and business we meet people every day and need to be able to size up and make …

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Integrity – Your Sales Edge

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Sales Relationships

Integrity was voted as the Number 2 Sales Trends for 2011, which is a sign of the times. Your word, your honour, your promise are on show and people will judge you on your actions not on your spin.

So what does integrity mean for us in business and beyond? As stated on Wikipedia ‘Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness of one’s actions. The word “integrity” stems from the Latin adjective integer (whole, complete). In this …

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Setting the sales agenda

By / / Prospecting, Sales Planning

If you or anyone in your team is struggling to open a client meeting effectively or if you feel awkward and lost for words, and your client or prospect is shifting in their seat, then you need an agenda.

One of the best ways you can kick off a client meeting is with an agenda. An agenda guides you, keeps you and your client on track and lets everyone know what the client meeting is about. Does this mean you stick to the agenda all the way? Well, probably not, because with any agenda things can change.

However, beginning with a clear …

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Having a sales monologue instead of sales dialogue with your customers?

By / / Communication, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Social Media, Social Sales
  • Have you ever noticed your customers getting that glazed look when you tell them how fabulous you and your company are?
  • Have you ever had your customers seem very agreeable in your sales meeting but never seem to follow through with an order?
  • Have you ever found yourself doing all of the talking whether in a client meeting or over the phone?

If so, chances are you are having a sales monologue and not a sales dialogue with your customers – you are nothing more than a ‘talking’ brochure and are wasting yours and your client’s time.

We all know what it is like …

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Transitioning from the old sales paradigm to the new world of social sales

By / / Communication, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Self Development, Social Media, Social Sales, Strategy

When I began my career as a professional sales person in the early 1980’s we were trained in product and client communication skills focusing on handling objections. We were given business cards, product brochures, a geographic territory of clients to manage and grow, and a car to get around in. We did not have mobile phones, let alone smart phones / tablets, laptops, or CRM’s. There was very little coaching and we were expected to make sales and make it work.

For a while there, let’s say 20+ years, it seemed like business as usual as many companies …

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2011 the year of Sales leadership and Integrity

By / / Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Success

In December 2010 we published The 12 Sales Trends of 2011 and invited readers to vote on what they thought would be the most important trends in sales for this year. Thank you to everyone who shared their views and voted. Every month we will explore one of the trends in more detail, starting with the trends voted as most important to you.

Without doubt Sales Leadership and Integrity topped the rankings; the voting was overwhelming in favour of these two trends. The voting revealed the sales trends for …

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Different sales assessments and how to use them

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Coaching, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics & Values, Prospecting, Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Assessments, Sales Culture, Sales Research, Sales Training, Self Development

If you wanted to, you could sit down for at least four weeks and complete 100’s of sales assessments and there would still be more on offer. This over abundance of sales assessments can be confusing because they are not all the same. If you do not know what you want to measure it will make looking for an effective sales assessment tool that much harder. Here are some questions that may help you select your sales assessments with more precision.

  • Why will this person sell? (Motives, Ambition, Goals)
  • Will this person sell? (Attitudes, Mindset, Not …

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