The Difference Between Selling and Negotiating

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Mindful selling, Negotiation, Sales Coaching, Sales Culture, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Success

Many people, especially sales people, often share the mistaken belief that Negotiation forms part of every sale which is not true. We often hear ‘my people need to be able to negotiate’ when upon further inspection they first need to learn how to sell. The reason many rely so much on negotiating is that their initial sales job was a poor effort. They neglected to properly establish the clients’ real priorities and needs and didn’t demonstrate how they can help the customer achieve results; financially as well as via their products, services, knowledge or intellectual …

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Move Over Marketing Here Comes Sales Strategy!

By / / Marketing, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Strategy, Success

The pundits (including Barrett) are always reminding sales executives of the need to plan. However, a major miscalculation made by many organisations is viewing their sales operations as purely tactical functions. The result – at best, sales plans become little more than operational imperatives bumping along one quarter to the next with no strategic intent.

More and more, the high cost of selling, longer lead times and the multitude of choice that customers have – coupled with rampant (and often aggressive and diversifying) competition, diminishing product differentiation and …

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Athletes Chase Olympic Gold in UK and Business Success Back Home

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Skills, Success

It’s an Olympic year and many of our elite athletes are rightly focusing their efforts on the London 2012 Olympic Games. There are a certain number of gold medals on offer and everyone knows their worth in terms of the honour and glory and even more so in terms of ensuing publicity, product endorsements, speaking engagement and the like.

However, with limited gold medals available, pure focus on winning one will leave many athletes short-changed if they have nothing in reserve. Smart athletes leave nothing to chance. Just like good sales people and business owners they …

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No Sales Leadership + No Accountability = No Sales Results

By / / Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Results, Success

Companies spend billions each year on sales training, organisational development, leadership training and other efforts to ultimately boost sales results. Often this is a waste of money because nothing changes for the better. Too busy looking for a short term boost, magic bullet or quick fix, i.e. the 1-3 day motivational sales training event, many business and sales leaders miss the vital point that sales training, more correctly termed sales fitness and evolution, is a long term investment. Smart business …

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Make 2012 The Best Year Yet – Put Yourself First!

By / / Assessments, Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Communication, Success, Teamwork

As we all come sailing in from the rather stormy seas of 2011 for a brief rest in a safe harbour we can chose to look back and reflect on what has happened in 2011; the challenges, mistakes, triumphs and lessons learned. Although reflection is very important we must not forget to take time to rest, relax and recharge before we look forward and dream about the future and what it holds for us.

2011 may have left you feeling overwhelmed running from one task to the other never stopping to rest and recoup. If you can take time to just …

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What Athletes, Top CEO’s and Pop Stars Have in Common

By / / Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Training, Self Development, Success

Elite athletes, pop stars, top selling writers, politicians, Fortune 100 CEO’s all have one thing in commonthey hire coaches to help them achieve their goals faster and become or maintain their ‘number one’ status. Elite performers see the value their coach brings to their craft. They know their coach will help them gain and create insights that transform their performance. The rest of us can take the same approach. Many salespeople see the value of hiring a sales coach to help maintain an edge internally and over …

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Signs you are at risk of losing your top sales performers

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Talent, Self Development, Success, Wellbeing

There they are every day bringing in the deals. They’re always prospecting, meeting clients, networking, making suggestions about how to do things even better and they never discount unnecessarily. Best of all your clients are happy. They’re happy with your offering, happy with your service, happy with the sales support they get and your business is profitable.

Sounds magnificent doesn’t it? Your top sales performer(s) require(s) very little work. They self manage, are resilient and are such a breeze to work with. They’re low maintenance and are not temperamental like those

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Age Old Lawn Bowls Turns New With Social Media

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Culture, Social Media, Strategy, Success

Lawn Bowls clubs are innovating to attract new members, even running bare-foot bowls and speed dating bowls for new and existing members. If the sport of Lawn Bowls can embrace the internet and social media to reinvigorate its brand, increase participation, grow its members and lift revenues, then so can we all.

Lawn Bowls has been around for hundreds of years with its origins supposedly dating back to Ancient Egyptian times along with its cousins, Bocce and Pétanque. It’s often been seen as a traditional sport for older people with rigid rules and recognisable but rather unattractive white uniforms. I can …

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Rethinking Sales Incentives – The Science of Motivation

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Management, Sales Research, Success

‘Rethinking Sales Incentives’ was voted as the Number 8 Sales Trends for 2011. Incentive programs, commissions and bonuses have been synonymous with sales teams for at least the last 50 years. However throwing more money at sales teams to perform better, especially in these more complex and creative times may be a thing of the past. While the ‘carrot and stick’ approach has been reasonably successful for most sales teams in the twentieth century, especially when sales people were simply selling product, scientific research is showing if you …

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5 top tips on how to produce a winning sales proposal

By / / Communication, Prospecting, Sales Tips, Success

A good sales proposal demonstrates real value; a quote just offers a price. Many sales people are required to produce a proposal or quote after an initial meeting with a client or prospect. This is a critical part of the sales process. Many sales people however, loathe producing proposals and consider it a chore believing they don’t get maximum value or return from their efforts. Often reduced to quoting prices or at worst just a ‘find and replace’ to change the client company name, sales people can do a lot better for themselves as well …

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