Learn to say ‘NO’

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Communication, Ethics & Values, Resilience, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Value Proposition & Value Add

Giving away the margin and undercutting your prices because you can’t say ‘NO’ is no good for anyone. It devalues you, your product, and your market. If done on mass then customers expect ‘cheap’ all the time, not fully appreciating the real value of the products or services they buy. All you do is risk devaluing you and your business.

Just look at the ‘perpetual sales’ going in retail all the time. No one ends up making any money and people go out of business.

Let’s face it; there will always be someone offering their products or services cheaper than you. …

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What do clients want?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Relationships, Value Proposition & Value Add

Clients don’t expect to be coerced, bullied, tricked or intimidated into buying. They don’t expect to be treated like an idiot by sales people who just talk at them and flash brochures or product sheets. Relationships do not work effectively if they are forced!

Clients are now after ‘Business people’who can sell.

Most clients know what they are after even if they don’t know how to articulate it sometimes.

The ‘market challenger’ or ‘early adopter’ clients are open to new ideas and innovations and whilst they don’t know what they don’t know they are often happy to see competent sales people to learn …

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Your pre-call & post-call checklist

By / / Sales Planning, Sales Skills

How well did your last sales call go? Did you achieve what you set out to achieve? Do you know what your next course of action will be with that customer/prospect? Do you have evidence that a real sales opportunity exists?

Using a pre-call and post-call checklist is a very useful process when assessing the effectiveness of your sales calls.

Too many sales people, however, invest too little time thinking about and planning their approach to developing prospective sales opportunities. Many sales opportunities involve a range of variables that need to be accounted for and acted upon if they are to achieve …

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What’s your competitive edge?

By / / Sales Management, Sales Planning, Sales Research

How many of us have been in business for a while and things have been going along smoothly, sales coming in, customers are happy. Then you notice that you are not winning the business you used to win.

In fact, you notice some of your customers are using new players in the market place when they once used you, or they are not doing anything at all. You follow up and find out that your clients are keen to work with the new players because they bring something different, new or unusual. Or they are distracted by other things.

What’s your competitive edge? Read Post »

Sales Meetings

By / / Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Sales Meetings, Sales Planning, Teamwork

Have you ever sat through a pointless meeting and calculated how much of the company’s money was being wasted on individuals sitting around a table completely zoned out?

Sales meetings in particular are an important tool for helping you to keep your team’s performance on track. Effective sales meetings don’t just happen, and improving your meetings isn’t just a case of ordering drinks and a plate of muffins. Successful meetings require a range of skills, a disciplined approach and an effective leader.

Here are some handy tips on how to prepare for and …

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Constipated by information

By / / Communication, Education in Sales, Role Clarity, Sales Planning, Social Media, Social Sales, Time Management

I confess, like most sales people I do not like – no I hate – paperwork and administration, because in my experience most of it is unnecessary.

Aggh! I hear some people say “information is vital for any business”. Yes it is, but not all of it. What information and how much of it do we really need?

As a sales person I do know the importance of information. It allows me to be focused when getting on the phone and out into the field to find more viable sales opportunities. I am focused on who I need to contact, how I …

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Being authentic in sales

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Sales Relationships, Value Proposition & Value Add, Vision, Mission & Purpose

The 20th century approach of one-upmanship, although still encouraged by many traditional sales managers, seems to be slowly retreating into the shadows of the past as crude and old-fashioned. Polar opposite to the latter, but just as unproductive, are the approaches of:

  • A whining puppy (pleading for a sale trying to make customers feel sorry for you).
  • A chameleon (always bending and twisting yourself to fit any situation, often losing yourself in the process).
  • A parrot (not adapting your approach enough to suit the style if the client).

These approaches often annoy customers and elicit pity rather than trust.

Too many sales people (in particular …

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Not all customers are good customers

By / / Business Acumen, Ethics & Values, Sales Planning, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy

Ever had some customers who spend very little with you but take up enormous amounts of your time? Nothing’s ever right, they quibble about every cent and they do not intend to spend much with you anyway.

Or those customers who are really nice and you get along with them very well, but you know they do not have the potential to develop into long-term revenue generating accounts for your business.

What do you do? You need sales, but at what cost to your business? These types of customers, in effect, keep you from working with customers where you can get a …

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Ashamed of being in sales

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Ethics & Values, Mindful selling, Prospecting, Value Proposition & Value Add, Wellbeing
  • Need you daily fix of self-help tapes/CDs or guru books to get you pepped up to sell.
  • Have a fragile positivism about sales, which bursts at the slightest criticism.
  • Can’t wait to get out of sales to get a “real” job.
  • Secretly ashamed of being in a sales career – this isn’t what I should be doing, my mother wants me to be a dentist.
  • Fear the loss of approval of your friends, family or peers because you think they will think less of you if you are in sales.
  • Don’t like being called a sales person – prefer titles like marketing consultant or pre-need …

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Missed & Lost Sales Opportunities

By / / Call Reluctance, Prospecting, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Time Management

Not enough new business coming? Sales drying up? Not making a satisfactory impact when in front of prospective clients?

If this is happening to you, consider your sales effectiveness and your sales efforts from these two angles:

  • Missed sales opportunities.
  • Lost sales opportunities.

    • If market conditions are right, and you have good products or services, then you may want to take a look at your own efforts. Your poor sales efforts may be due to:

    Missed sales opportunities: Put simply, missed sales opportunities are all about a lack of prospecting activity. If there is little or no prospecting for …

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