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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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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Making the most of Up Selling & Cross Selling

By / / Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Up-selling & Cross Selling, Value Proposition & Value Add

Do you sell one thing and one thing only? Probably not. I suspect your business has a range of things it can offer. And I suspect that many of these things can be integrated together to make an end-to-end solution or various combinations that lead to much larger sales.

If this is the case, then how well are you selling in the size and scope of your business offerings?

Too many times sales people get fixated on the immediate sale in front of them not really seeing the potential of that sale now or into the future. If they would only ask …

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Missed & Lost Sales Opportunities

By / / Call Reluctance, Prospecting, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Time Management

Not enough new business coming? Sales drying up? Not making a satisfactory impact when in front of prospective clients?

If this is happening to you, consider your sales effectiveness and your sales efforts from these two angles:

  • Missed sales opportunities.
  • Lost sales opportunities.

    • If market conditions are right, and you have good products or services, then you may want to take a look at your own efforts. Your poor sales efforts may be due to:

    Missed sales opportunities: Put simply, missed sales opportunities are all about a lack of prospecting activity. If there is little or no prospecting for …

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    Influencing vs Negotiating

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Negotiation, Sales Relationships, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Training

    It has often been said that very strong negotiation skills are critical to being a high performing sales person. However, findings from our “sales force fitness” profiling work, where we profile critical qualities for successful sales performance in many businesses, large and small, is telling a very different story.

    Before you invest your training dollars into negotiating skills training for your sales team, you might like to think about investing it into influencing skills training instead.

    Why? The ability to positively influence prospects or clients towards your brand and product offering – more so than negotiation – is what is needed in …

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    Selling and managing are not the same

    By / / Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Results

    Last week I spoke about sales burnout and the challenges many SME business owners have of being all things to all people including, usually, the main sales person and sales manager.Like many people, I have known that selling and managing are not the same thing. They are two very distinct jobs with different demands and expectations.

    Some home truths about sales management:

    • Sales teams cannot be lead from behind a desk.
    • Sales people cannot be cloned into the image of the top sales-person-now-sales-manager.
    • Mediocre supervision can put a big dent in the effectiveness of good salespeople.
    • Sales people need sales leaders and coaches, not administrators …

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    Professional Visitor or Professional Sales Person?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Prospecting, Sales Coaching, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Training

    I am seeing a lot of time wasted by sales staff aimlessly chatting with clients.

    How often are you left with the feeling that your sales people are seeing clients, but beyond the “hello” and general chat, nothing of substance is happening?

    I call it the phenomenon of “professional visitation”.

    Often the cause can be isolated to a sales person’s reticence to ask the “hard questions”. Preferring to operate at a more superficial level, there is little chance the sales person will ever become involved in negotiating their way through customer demands and price issues.

    Contact time with customers should always be productive. It …

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    You can’t improve salespeople without improving sales management first

    By / / Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Results

    I am constantly appalled at the lack of effective sales management in companies these days. Not a week goes by in which I don’t see a company make the mistake of focusing exclusively on salespeople in trying to improve sales performance.

    Experience has shown that sales managers are even more critical than sales people for creating durable performance change. Really proficient sales supervision can do wonders to improve the skills, strategies and competencies of average salespeople.

    Myth: The best sales person makes the best sales manager.

    Fact: Selling and managing are two very different positions with different demands and expectations.

    Most exceptional sales people …

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    The trouble with sales training

    By / / Sales Management, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Training

    What impact does attending a sales training program have on change?

    It all depends on what type of training format your sales people attend. Too many companies look for quick fixes and waste heaps of money in the process.

    Firstly forget Event Style training – you know those one day RAH RAH sessions that promise the world and deliver nothing in the long run. They DON’T work! They have the effect of a hot bath – nice whilst you are in it but it soon gets cold.

    I am not saying all …

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