Count your chickens

By / / Communication, Customer Service, Prospecting, Sales Planning, Sales Relationships, Sales Tips

Everyone I am speaking to, at least, are aware they are working in a softening market. Some businesses of course are counter cyclical, meaning they can make money in these tougher times i.e. outplacement firms for all the obvious reasons, but they are more the exception. If you market is softer or heading or a down turn it doesn’t have to be all gloom and doom. It’s true now you have to earn your real money through proactive sales practices.

So with on the agenda, one of my clients in regional Australia kindly sent me a great article on “The three …

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Leadership, Sales and a Clear Message

By / / Brand & Reputation, Communication, Ethics & Values, Marketing, Prospecting, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Strategy, Sales Training, Strategy, Success, Vision, Mission & Purpose

Welcome to 2009.

Over the summer break I was talking with a number of friends about what 2009 will hold for us, our families, our communities and our businesses. Without exception, we discussed the current and possible effects of the GFC (global financial crisis) on our markets and especially on our thinking and our actions moving forward. We discussed the importance of open, clear and honest communication and decisive leadership, clear goals and defining what we stand for.

We discussed the fact that it would be very hard for people to make ‘easy’ money this year i.e. playing the stock market, etc. …

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Create your own opportunities

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Networking, Prospecting, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Strategy, Value Proposition & Value Add

Just one idea can positively transform your life, career, income and wealth.
As I have written before, in uncertain times, we can let the negativity of current events and others consume us or we can continue to look for opportunity. Excessive worry, however, can often cause us to lose sight of our goals and can limit our creativity and problems solving capabilities just when we really need them.

These tough times call for us to be even more innovative, inventive, creative and persistent. Some of the most successful sales people are the most adaptive and creative people you can …

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Persistence and the Honourable Retreat

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Prospecting, Resilience, Sales Results, Self Promotion

Did you know:

  • Over 50% of sales people give up at 1st contact if they get a ‘NO’ from the prospect never to go back to that prospect again .
  • At the 5th contact 7% of sales people are left to speak with the prospect to see if they can do business together.
  • At the 8th contact there is only one sales person left to work with the prospect. Hopefully it is you.

Many sales people, especially those new to sales, often take it personally when a prospect says ‘NO’. Many fail to persist and often fail to favourably position themselves to ‘leave …

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Locating Prospects

By / / Prospecting, Sales Planning, Sales Tips, Social Media, Social Sales

In the sea of information that is the internet and the ever growing networked communities we live in, you could essentially get a sales lead from anywhere. In principal this sound great. You always have someone to call on or prospect too.

However having too many choices can often lead to feelings of being overwhelmed by too much information. And when you have too much information this can lead to indecision and subsequently inaction. And inaction is the NUMBER 1 killer of any sales prospecting strategy.

So where do we start to sort out where we locate prospects? …

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Do Not Call

By / / Brand & Reputation, Call Reluctance, Ethics & Values, Prospecting

Last week www.smartcompany.com.au ran a story saying that the Federal Government may include business numbers in the Do Not Call register. What are they talking about?

Prospecting for new business via the telephone (referred to as unsolicited phone calls) is still a legitimate and critical business activity necessary for anyone in sales and in business, especially in business to business sales where consumer marketing and advertising strategies do not work effectively. It is a vital activity any business or sales person worth their salt should be doing on a regular basis. Therefore I do not believe that the …

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First Impressions

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Customer Service, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics & Values, Networking, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Value Proposition & Value Add

Picking up from my recent posting “We’ll meet again” I thought it would be worth looking at how First Impressions can impact our opinions of other people and their opinions of us. In turn first impressions can affect the desire to work together or not. Have you ever regretted a time when you didn’t make a favourable first impression? Did you wish you could have your time over again to make a more positive impression? I am sure you are not alone. We can all think of a time when we messed up. As the old saying goes: ‘You don’t …

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Trust-based relationships

By / / Brand & Reputation, Collaboration, Customer Service, Ethics & Values, Networking, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Up-selling & Cross Selling, Value Proposition & Value Add

I typed ‘Sales’ into youtube.com the other day just to see what was on offer. I have to say that some of the initial videos displayed on the front page were very disappointing indeed, especially when it came to building trust-based relationships with clients.

One well-known speaker was spruking ways to get your prospect to call you back. His idea was to leave a provocative half message that said something along the lines of “I’ve just been speaking to your competitors and they said you are in big ” then he suggested hanging up before you competed the message. …

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Peak Performance in Prospecting

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Call Reluctance, Emotional Intelligence, Mindful selling, Networking, Neuroscience in Sales, Prospecting, Resilience, Role Clarity, Sales Pioneer, Sales Skills, Self Promotion, Wellbeing

Building on from last week’s topic ‘The Optimistic Sales Professional’ I thought I would extend the theme further and explore the topic of ‘Peak Performance in Prospecting’.

A peak performing prospector is a salesperson who displays passion, self motivation and results focus. They are disciplined in their approach, evaluate and purse viable opportunities while remaining optimistic, resilient, committed and energized. They are ethical at all times and display empathy, respect and courtesy towards their prospects. To help us look at this in more depth let’s look at what is considered peak performance.

What is Peak Performance?
“Sustained, continuous performance at …

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Watch who you let near your mind

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Call Reluctance, Emotional Intelligence, Mindful selling, Neuroscience in Sales, Prospecting, Resilience, Wellbeing, Yielding

With the Sub-prime market issue in the US and its effects on countries and the world’s stock markets featuring as a daily major news item at present who can blame people for getting a bit nervous and worried about the future. You can see it with the panic selling of shares and so forth. However if we let this and other issues get to us and allow ourselves to blow things out of all proportion we can, in turn, create our own demise. Whilst it is critical for business owners and sales people to keep abreast of …

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