Enthusiasm in Selling

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Life Skills, Sales Skills, Sales Talent

There is a popular fallacy that salespeople are born, not made. Whilst there is some vestige of truth in the statement, it is not for the reasons made so popular – i.e. it’s not that salespeople have the ‘gift of the gab’ but rather because these successful salespeople are genuinely enthusiastic about what they do and helping prospects find a solution.  These salespeople have a purpose to what they do and enjoy the process of discovery, problem solving and collaboration with others.

This does not mean that …

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Are you paying salespeople enough to sell well?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Talent

Are you paying your salespeople enough to enable them to focus on selling and not worry about where their next paycheck is coming from?  Because if salespeople are constantly worrying about when they are going to get paid, how can they sell well?

For many years, unlike most other salaried employees who can rely on a regular weekly/monthly pay check, salespeople have often been required to live hand-to-mouth – making sales and waiting for their commission or bonus to supplement their living income.  Often the …

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Mastering the Sales Management Essentials

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Coaching, Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales Forecasting, Sales Leadership, Sales Management

What are the Sales Management Essentials and how do we master them?  Well firstly Sales management and leadership is not about selling!

In fact when one examines the role of the modern sales leader it quickly becomes evident that there just isn’t time to sell. Equipping sales leaders to perform the tasks for which they are responsible, and sustaining the momentum of the sales force in its drive for incremental value and volume, at the same time as continuously improving the customer experience, is a challenge that demands a high degree of maturity, dedication, …

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Ego is a dirty word in sales & sales management

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Communication, Competition, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, Sales Management, Sales Talent, Wellbeing

Having a big ego is often associated with the sales profession.   For many years the supercharged Alpha male, 600 lb sales gorilla has been the poster person for successful salespeople.   And then there is the larger than life sales manager who charges in to save the day by taking over the sales call, making the sale and demonstrating to everyone present just how much better he is than the salesperson.  With stories like these swirling in the ether, it is often assumed that a …

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First, people buy the salesperson

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Customer Service, Education in Sales, Sales Skills

Here’s a simple reality… Prospects and customers buy the salesperson first during every sales call – or they don’t buy at all.

In any major sale, especially Business-to-Business (B2B) or complex Business-to-Consumer sales, the prospect or customer makes a predictable series of buying decisions that lead to a final purchasing decision. The first and perhaps the most important of these is:

                ‘Do I buy what this salesperson is saying?’

This decision is always made before the prospect or customer will seriously consider factors such as your product or service offering and price.  Yet many

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Empathy – The New Sales Edge

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Emotional Intelligence, Life Skills, Mindful selling, Neuroscience, Sales Psychology

Late last year we published the 12 Sales Trends Report for 2013 and released a brief summary of each sales trend in December.  Over the year we will delve a little deeper into each sales trend.  To kick off the New Year we will focus on the Sales Trend Empathy.

This sales trend is seeing smart businesses making it a priority to redress the balance and develop our brains’ Interpersonal sensitivities: our empathetic side to take into account the needs of others as well …

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Hey Retailers – stop whinging and start caring!

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Customer Service

Over the past few months there has been a plethora of editorial regarding the decline in retail sales. Amongst other things, an argument being put forward by traditional retailers for these poor sales numbers is the unfair advantage Internet traders have because many don’t have to charge GST for products under $1,000. This, claim the brick and mortar retailers, makes it impossible for them to compete and still be profitable. Never mind that international retailers have recently opened (brick and mortar) stores in Australia and are making a profit; never mind too, that most retailers have steadfastly refused or learned …

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Sales Lessons out of the mouths of babes

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Life Skills

‘Out of the mouths of babes’ is one of those expressions you hear adults utter occasionally. Often amazed at the remarkable or insightful things children say, I think we do children an injustice by thinking this is an infrequent or rare occurrence. The many children I have met over the years are very perceptive, smart and able to see through weak arguments and call people on them, even if the children, themselves, have not acquired the worldly experiences we accumulate as adults.

You may recall that I wrote an article a couple of years ago titled, ‘ Sales Lessons out of the mouths of babes Read Post »

On your marks… Get set… GO!

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Education in Sales, Life Skills, Sales Training, Self Development, Self Promotion, Success

A prosperous life after elite sport is critically important to elite athletes as many of them have dedicated the best part of their lives (some into their 30’s) pursing excellence in their chosen sport often leaving education or business pursuits on the side.  These elite athletes know that achieving excellence in sport requires dedication, determination, discipline and sacrifice.  So what do you do career wise after a life in elite sport?  Or what can you do business wise while still pursuing your sporting goals?

These are just two of the many questions asked by the ACE (Athlete Career & Education) advisors …

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Never ask a customer what they want

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Collaboration

Do not ask customers what they want when it comes to creating and introducing new technology and innovations. Why? Because according to leading voice on innovation, Scott Anthony, MD of Innosight Asia Pacific, ‘customers lie all the time… not intentionally of course, but because they cannot tell you what they want in terms of new technology, especially disruptive technology until it is in front of them.’  If you don’t know what you don’t know, how can you know what you want?

These are just some of the conversations taking place at the Ci2012 Creative Innovation conference ‘Wicked …

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