A view for the other side

By / / Brand & Reputation, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Customer Service, Negotiation, Procurement, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy

An Audience with Procurement Part 2

Following for last week’s piece on Procurement, I promised I would delve further into the view from the other side of the table and how, we, as sales people, view procurement and some of the practices which help or hinder sales and partnership effectiveness. And what our common enemy is.

So let’s take a look at the other side of the table.

Many a seasoned sales person can tell you story after story about the ‘Gunna Gunna’ customers:Gunna do this, gunna do that be it never goes anywhere.

Customers who spend very little with us but take …

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Great Story Tellers

By / / Brand & Reputation, Communication, Marketing, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Value Proposition & Value Add, Vision, Mission & Purpose

I have noticed that good sales people are often great storytellers. They have the ability to find the right story to resonate with your situation.

They speak from experience and you know they know their stuff. They can paint a picture that is your picture and get you visualizing success in partnership with them.

They seem to be able to connect disparate situations, events or feelings and find the common thread that binds them all together – together for you to connect with. And even if the story they are telling is not directly relevant to your business or market, the situation …

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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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Sales Training is not a luxury – it’s essential

By / / Education in Sales, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Culture, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Research, Sales Skills, Sales Training

Keeping you and your sales team ‘match fit’ and actively engaged in the market place selling effectively is paramount to your survival and success in today’s market. Yet too many businesses, large and small, do not train their sales teams in the vital skills needed in the much more consultative, value add, less product focused market of today.

I was reminded of this again when I was speaking with a 35+ year veteran in sales and sales management who works in the office equipment and facilities management industry. We were discussing the sales team he has inherited recently and how they …

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Getting past the Gate Keeper

By / / Call Reluctance, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills

This time of the year many people are trying to get back into the swing of things after their Christmas break. It’s about this time that many sales people begin their prospecting efforts in earnest and many people are back from leave. It is as good a time as any to prospect.

So as it’s the New Year, I thought we could take a fresh look at some old issues.

One of the most common complaints I hear from sales people time and time again is ‘How do I get around the gate keeper?’

A Gate Keeper is the person who can prevent …

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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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Learn to say ‘NO’

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Call Reluctance, Communication, Ethics & Values, Resilience, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Value Proposition & Value Add

Giving away the margin and undercutting your prices because you can’t say ‘NO’ is no good for anyone. It devalues you, your product, and your market. If done on mass then customers expect ‘cheap’ all the time, not fully appreciating the real value of the products or services they buy. All you do is risk devaluing you and your business.

Just look at the ‘perpetual sales’ going in retail all the time. No one ends up making any money and people go out of business.

Let’s face it; there will always be someone offering their products or services cheaper than you. …

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Your pre-call & post-call checklist

By / / Sales Planning, Sales Skills

How well did your last sales call go? Did you achieve what you set out to achieve? Do you know what your next course of action will be with that customer/prospect? Do you have evidence that a real sales opportunity exists?

Using a pre-call and post-call checklist is a very useful process when assessing the effectiveness of your sales calls.

Too many sales people, however, invest too little time thinking about and planning their approach to developing prospective sales opportunities. Many sales opportunities involve a range of variables that need to be accounted for and acted upon if they are to achieve …

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Not all customers are good customers

By / / Business Acumen, Ethics & Values, Sales Planning, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy

Ever had some customers who spend very little with you but take up enormous amounts of your time? Nothing’s ever right, they quibble about every cent and they do not intend to spend much with you anyway.

Or those customers who are really nice and you get along with them very well, but you know they do not have the potential to develop into long-term revenue generating accounts for your business.

What do you do? You need sales, but at what cost to your business? These types of customers, in effect, keep you from working with customers where you can get a …

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