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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Sales Trend 9 – Personal Branding is a must have asset

By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Social Media, Social Sales

Key terms: social media, consistency, engagement, results

Guest author: Josh Schmalenbach

Sales Trend 9 from our 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 is about social selling.

As technology and the internet have evolved, our access to information has also vastly grown. Never before has it been so easy to find out so much about a product or a person.

With a simple Google search, one can find pages of information regarding someone’s career, achievements, education, and even what they have shared online.

This ease of access to data has made the buying process significantly easier and less risky for everyone involved. The …

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4 Questions to Test if your Sales & Prospecting Tactics are Ethical

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Prospecting, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Management, Sales Motivation & Rewards, Selling Better
  • Do other people stand to gain from your sales tactics and actions?
  • Do your sales tactics and actions have a positive influence on your own and others’ well-being and self-esteem?
  • Do your sales tactics and actions move you and your customer closer to your respective short- and long-term goals?
  • Would most people approve of how you prospect for new business and sell?

    • If each of us can honestly answer “yes” to these questions, then it would appear that our sales and prospecting efforts are underpinned by sound ethics and behaviours and set up to deliver a fair exchange of value for both buyer and …

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    This didn’t happen in my time …

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Life Skills, Opportunity, Optimism, Selling Better, Success

    Today it happens it is the same
    to be decent or a traitor
    To be an ignorant, wise, a pickpocket,
    a generous person or a swindler
    All is the same, nothing is better
    They are the same, a fool
    and a professor
    There are no failing grades or hierarchy,
    the immoral people have caught up with us.
    If one lives in deceit
    and another, in their ambition, steals.
    It’s the same if it’s a priest,
    a mattress maker, a king of clubs,
    a rascal or a stowaway.

    Currently this seems to be the world we live in, and everywhere we turn, …

    This didn’t happen in my time … Read Post »

    Why a Fair Exchange of Value goes beyond exchanging money for goods

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Ethics & Values, Sales Relationships, Selling Better

    At its simplest, selling and buying is about a transactional exchange of a service or product for money.

    For simple, low cost, transactional sales, where we may have little vested interest in the other person or company providing that product, we may not reflect as deeply on our buying interactions with them. However, if we discover that we have been ‘ripped off’ by paying too much for something, or unfairly treated, or discriminated against, and so on, we are more likely to become highly invested in the concept of fair exchange of value.

    Why? Because as human beings, we do not like …

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    6 Tips on How to Sell Value and Reposition Price

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Tips

    One of the most widely reported reasons for a sale to stall is price. Salespeople often get stuck in the price conversation that only leads to the selling organisation discounting their offer, or the prospect going with another provider. But it needn’t be this way.

    Clients and prospects get into these conversations because there’s nothing else for them to perceive as value besides the number next to the dollar sign.

    The price is an arbitrary figure with no inherent value in itself; it’s just a number and means absolutely nothing until it is made relative to something of value. Clients don’t see …

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    Is your organisation your worst ‘Sales Blocker’?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration, Customer Service, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales performance, Sales Results, Strategy, Success

    Many articles have been written about the many, many excuses salespeople come up with as to why they haven’t hit their sales targets, why they find it hard to sell, and so on.

    The accusatory finger always seems to be pointing at the salespeople. And sometimes this is fair, however, there are many reasons why it’s not always the salesperson’s fault.

    There are many reasons why salespeople are prevented from carrying out their sales duties effectively. This article is about highlighting the blockers or blockages in their way – intended or unintended.

    Let’s explore these blockers and see how we can remove them …

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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 …

    Is your sales team Sinking or Swimming? Read Post »

    Sales Leadership – the power of preparedness, curiosity and courage in times of flux

    By / / 12 Sales Trends Pages Category, Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence, Sales Leadership, Sales Trends

    Sales Trend 7 from the Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 is about leadership, in particular, which characteristics are key for leaders in times of flux.

    The state of flux we are experiencing, is bringing about a shift in the top key qualities required to be an effective business executive and leader.

    It’s not necessarily a completely different set of qualities, but a change in their order of relevance for navigating a changing, ‘fluxy’ kind of world.

    Douglas A. Ready, a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and the founder and president of ICEDR, says “We need to …

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