How to sell better in uncertain times

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Mindful selling, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Management, Sales Strategy

Here we go again.

Global disarray, government elections, political scandals of betrayal and corruption. How do we keep our head when everyone else around us is losing theirs? How are we supposed to lead business and keep selling better when there’s a general feeling of uncertainty that makes decision making so difficult?

There are those of us who have been around in business for some time now. Many of us have been through a few major crises before such as the GFC and the major recession we had in the early 1990s. Things weren’t pretty, for sure, and yes there was a …

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6 Tips on How to Sell Value and Reposition Price – Take 2

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Competition, Education in Sales, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Selling Better

Another week goes by and another dozen stories of businesses discounting prices (or being asked to do so by their prospects or clients) appear. This week we heard about a few examples:

  • a business being asked by a prospect to ‘give us a better price because you are doing a few things with us’,
  • a business being told by a client, midway through a project, that ‘they would love to keep on working with them but competitor XYZ can now do it for 25% less because they can bring in cheaper consultants from overseas ’, and
  • another business being asked to give a …

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    Someone has to sell, or you don’t have a business

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Entrepreneurship, Life Skills, Opportunity, Sales Essentials, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training

    Someone has to do the selling or you don’t have a business.

    I have met many people over the years who have great ideas, skills, processes or inventions but hate the thought of selling.

    They usually come from two camps:

    Camp 1: Those people who understand they have to sell in order to have a business but just do not know how to do it. They often harbour some fears and anxieties about selling because of its bad public reputation and can feel overwhelmed about what they have to do. However, I find these people are willing to have a go.

    I will gladly …

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    The rise of Ethical Selling in the new world order: The history of Sales Methodologies, revised & updated

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Ethics & Values, Selling Better, Solution Selling

    Selling is a hot topic, especially the louder calls for more ethical, fairer, purpose driven business and selling practices. Given the recent findings from the Australian Banking Royal Commission and the emerging new world transparency highlighting various unethical, immoral and unsustainable business and sales practices across the collective value chain, the rise of an Ethical Purpose Driven Selling Methodology, as the new world order, is making its way into mainstream consciousness.

    This got us revisiting our whitepaper, The History of Sales Methodologies – why some work and others don’t which we published in 2013. We wondered if there were enough significant …

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    Using ‘Intelligent Practice’ to enhance Sales Mastery & Results

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales performance, Sales Process Maps, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training

    In a time poor world, many people including sales leaders and salespeople often bemoan the fact that they cannot seem to make time for important things like continued professional development, coaching, and thorough planning thus leaving their evolution and sales results to chance.

    Rushing through the day, responding to ‘urgent’ matters and deadlines, getting in and out of sales meetings as quickly as possible, doing the bare minimum with CRM and reporting, with little or no time for reflection or developing mastery in their core capabilities seems to be the lot of many sales teams today.

    When we rush through tasks, client …

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    7 things you need to know about the Craft of Selling

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Resilience, Sales Essentials, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training, Solution Selling
    We can agree:

    Everybody lives by selling something – whether it be ideas, initiatives, visions, products, services or solutions.

    Selling is ubiquitous – ever present in our daily lives, internally and externally. 

    Selling is the vehicle that allows opportunity to flourish and people to prosper.

    Nothing happens until something gets sold.

    However:

    As ever present as selling is in our daily lives, most people learn how to sell by default, not design.

    Often thrown in the deep end, they work it out as they go, feeling their way by trial and error, hoping to be on the right track.

    This means that more people fail …

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    Unethical Selling, not Selling, should be on trial at the Banking Royal Commission

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Competition, Education in Sales, Ethics & Values, Selling Better

    With the handing down of the Interim Report from the Banking Royal Commission, Commissioner Hayne was scathing in his assessment of the banking finance sector, especially the big 4 banks and large insurance and investment firms, such as AMP, for enabling their cultures of greed to flourish at the expense of customers’ wellbeing, principled and ethical business practice.

    Commissioner Hayne said the key questions the commission had to answer were why such poor conduct had occurred and how to stop it happening again.

    He added that, in many cases, the answer to the first question was obvious.

    “Too often, the answer seems to …

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    The 5 Dimensions for Sales Alignment, Harmony & Success

    By / / Assessments, Education in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Success

    As CEOs and sales leaders, we understand that there are many factors that make for a successful sales strategy, operating system and sales team in the competitive, complex, variable world of selling. Leading a sales team and operation is like bringing together an orchestra where there is a fine line between success and failure, being harmonious or out of tune.

    As sales professionals, we can often find ourselves either ‘firing on all cylinders’, ‘kicking goals’ and ‘getting the job done’ or feeling ‘not quite right’, ‘out of sorts’, or ‘off our game’ and often not really sure as …

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    Is your sales team Sinking or Swimming?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Role Clarity, Sales Coaching, Sales Essentials, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Training

    Even with the wide availability of information, sales training resources and systems to get salespeople up to speed and selling, too many salespeople are still being thrown in the deep end without any support or induction, and are expected to sell.

    Now, if you are an experienced salesperson you would probably navigate your way fairly quickly – that is if you actually know what you need to know, do and say.

    If your organisation is like most companies, some effort is usually invested in product training but not usually in ‘how we sell around here’.

    Selling is an unusual profession in …

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    Selling isn’t only for salespeople

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Ethics & Values, Life Skills, Self Promotion, Selling Better, Success

    Have you ever tried to persuade someone about the merits of a new idea, service or initiative?

    Most surely you have. Countless times.

    People do this all the time, since we were born; in our personal, professional and community lives. It is part of being human.

    So how did your efforts go?

    Did you get their attention?

    Did you manage to convince them to adopt your idea?

    Did you both get what you wanted out of the exchange?

    Did you feel satisfied that you made a positive impact?

    Maybe. Maybe not.

    It all depends on how well you were able to enlist all the skills and qualities of good …

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