Recognition or Praise?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Education in Sales, Emotional Intelligence, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Motivation & Rewards, Sales Relationships, Sales Results, Sales Talent, Sales Tips

Sales managers are being told to do more with less, to work smarter to get peak performance from their sales teams, despite increasingly limited resources. As tough as it is, there is one tool in the sales manager’s portfolio that is never in short supply – Praise!

Yet for some reason, many sales managers find it challenging to show their appreciation for their sales people’s efforts, reluctantly doling out praise as if it was in short supply. …

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What’s influencing your customers’ buying decisions?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Communication, Customer Service, Education in Sales, Neuroscience, Sales Psychology, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Strategy

Product demand and brand scores are down and the reasons are tough to manage. There are a multitude of factors influencing buyers, some are within our control and many are not. Factors such as bad experiences with retailers and intermediaries, mediocre service levels, the increasing number of competitors with similar products and brands, cheaper pricing are just some of the causes. The tricky global situation is also creating a more conservative spending climate where saving is now the prevailing consumer mindset. With all of this how do we influence our customers so that they want to buy from us? How …

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Know Thy Customer – Buyers in the Driver’s Seat

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Communication, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Relationships, Sales Tips

Robyn Creed our Head of Coaching hales originally from country NSW and recently spent a relaxing weekend mustering cattle on her sisters’ 11,000 acre property north of Jerilderie, in NSW. Here is her account of the cattle industry and how buyers are truly in the driver’s seat when it comes to customer buying preferences. “Over the course of the weekend we discussed many interesting facts in relation to producing quality cattle and I realised that like the Apples’ and Samsungs’ of this world cattle producers breed cattle based on the specific needs of what their …

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Every Sales Person Starts as an Educator

By / / Communication, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Mindful selling, Negotiation, Sales Culture, Sales Skills

‘Educate and Facilitate’ was voted by our readers as the fourth most important sales trend in Barrett’s 2012 Sales Trends Report. With the 21st Century ‘selling’ not being about features and benefits anymore what has taken its place? Effective selling is a journey from education to opportunity. To sell something we need to educate in order to facilitate an opportunity. Our buyers determine where on that journey we must join them. Is it a well-informed buyer for whom we simply need facilitate the opportunity they seek? …

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Top 10 Tips when Negotiating

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Education in Sales, Life Skills, Negotiation, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Self Development

Everybody needs to negotiate from time to time; at work, at home, as a leader, as sales person, and as a consumer. For some it seems easy, but others view the process of negotiation as a source of conflict to be resisted and avoided if possible. Negotiation is a process and a skill that can be developed. Negotiation can be described as a process that involves two or more people dealing with each other with the intention of forming an agreement and a commitment to a course of action where compromise needs to be reached in order to move forward. …

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From Mass Marketing to Markets of One

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Communication, Marketing, Sales Skills, Social Sales, Teamwork

”Move over mass marketing welcome to fragmentation and segmentation” was voted by our readers as the third most important sales trend in Barrett’s 2012 Sales Trends Report. Market fragmentation and segmentation is well and truly taking over from Mass Marketing society’s staple way of communicating with buyers for over 50 years. So what will this change look like for our businesses and our customers? Barrett is seeing the relationship between marketing and selling widen as each fights for supremacy in the digital communications era. With this widening gap, marketing will finally …

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Are you really listening or just waiting to speak?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Customer Service, Emotional Intelligence, Life Skills, Mindful selling, Wellbeing

Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf… – Native American Proverb How long do we actually listen to another person before we start interrupting? How quickly do our own thoughts take over and we start thinking about what question to ask or what we need to say in reply even before they’ve finished speaking? Do we find ourselves interrupting the person to give our own opinion or finish their sentences before they are finished? If this sounds like you, then you’re not listening you are just waiting to speak and as the Native American Proverb above says, if we …

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4 rules to best validate yourself with buyers

By / / Communication, Negotiation, Sales Relationships, Sales Strategy, Self Promotion

Ever been asked straight up at the beginning of a prospective client meeting, “So what do you do?” despite your sincere intention to ask questions of your prospective buyer rather than talk about yourself?

I bet you have and I bet you found yourself on more than one occasion feeling somewhat uncomfortable because:

a) You didn’t know what to say quickly and succinctly thus making yourself feel and look a bit silly;

or

b) You ended up talking about your business, your products and yourself ad nauseam while watching your client or buyer’s eyes glaze over.

Hmm Awkward … why do …

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Make 2012 The Best Year Yet – Put Yourself First!

By / / Assessments, Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Communication, Success, Teamwork

As we all come sailing in from the rather stormy seas of 2011 for a brief rest in a safe harbour we can chose to look back and reflect on what has happened in 2011; the challenges, mistakes, triumphs and lessons learned. Although reflection is very important we must not forget to take time to rest, relax and recharge before we look forward and dream about the future and what it holds for us.

2011 may have left you feeling overwhelmed running from one task to the other never stopping to rest and recoup. If you can take time to just …

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Why LinkedIn Invitations Need To Be Purposeful

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Social Media

LinkedIn is about creating and nurturing relationships. It’s a marvelous tool for researching and connecting with people and helps you forge genuine relationships based on substance and value. I’ve been on LinkedIn for many years now and have been steadily growing my network. I only connect with people I know personally or have connected with via an event or activity. As much as I am for prospecting and building new networks and business I draw the line at sending out impersonal LinekdIn requests, random or otherwise to people that I don’t know.

So why do so many …

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