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Helping Customers Move Forward
Let’s focus on how you can accelerate closing by being “helpful” to your customers. What would you do in the following two scenarios to be “helpful?”
A, B, C, E-MAIL OF PROSPECTING
When you’re trying to get a meeting with a prospect, the ideal outcome of your telephone call is to get a face-to-face appointment. But in spite of your skills and making a second effort some prospects will not agree to a meeting yet!
A SALES METHODOLOGY
Do you have a sales methodology that your team follows? What is a sales methodology? In Linda Richardson's new article, A Sales Methodolgy, Linda will review the importance of a an effective sales process and methodolgy.

ASKING THE TOUGH QUESTIONS
KNOWING HOW TO FINESSE POTENTIALLY INTRUSIVE QUESTIONS SO THAT YOU ARE COMFORTABLE ASKING THEM AND CLIENTS FEEL GOOD ABOUT ANSWERING IS AN INVALUABLE SKILL.
CHALLENGING MESSAGES
Even in the best of times, change can be stressful — and these are hardly the best of times. If you are faced with announcing a less than welcome change, how you position the message dramatically influences how your sales team will hear it. The following are some ideas to help you and your team deal with the change:
DECISION MAKERS VS. INFLUENCERS
Because clients’ needs have become increasingly complex, most salespeople recognize that to meet those needs a team effort is required. Being able to gain access to team members, preparing with them, and performing in front of the client as an effective team are essential to meet clients’ broader and more complex needs.
ESCALATION AS A NEGOTIATION STRATEGY
Escalation can be a highly effective negotiation strategy. Having unlimited authority in a negotiation can seem, and is, powerful, but it can be equally dangerous. If your client thinks that you have unlimited authority, he or she can read that as a green light to keep driving for more.
GETTING THE STRAIGHT SCOOP
Win or lose, how diligent are you in placing a call to get feedback from your clients about why they did or didn’t choose you? There is so much to learn — whether to identify strengths you hadn’t even recognized as such that you can use to win future business, to know what appeals most to your client so you can be extra sure to deliver on that, or to correct misses and prevent them from happening to sink future deals.
LEADS, LEADS, LEADS
In a more challenging economy clients’ decision processes often become more protracted. You think that salespeople would jump on every possible lead. Yet our research and experience show that, even today, many leads are too easily discounted. For example, some salespeople mistakenly discount a lead because the level of the contact isn’t high enough. Yet research shows that many opportunities begin at the operational level.

LEVERAGE YOUR PREPARATION
Preparing for a sales call, while it still takes discipline and time, has never been easier. Technology (CRMs, Google, other web resources) has dramatically reduced research time. The other side of the coin is that technology has made business more instantaneous and that has put more demand on salespeople’s time.

NO BUDGET – UNLESS OF COURSE…
Many of the customers we are talking to may be like your customers. Their budgets have either been cut or all but vanished. What can you do? Linda Richardson article "No Budget - Unless of Course.." explores some helpful tips.
ROOM FOR TWO EXPERTS IN YOUR SALES CALL?
I read an article recently about programmers. It described programmers as program experts and their clients as domain experts. I couldn’t help thinking how customer-focused we could be in sales if we thought of clients as domain experts.
STICKY QUESTIONS
How should you answer an “uncomfortable” question or concern by a client that you wish you didn’t have to discuss, for example, a situation in which a colleague left your organization under difficult circumstances or negative press?
NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL
Many salespeople are reporting that it is taking them twice as long to close a sale. They also agree that there are fewer deals and, therefore, the need for them to close the deals that are in the pipeline is more acute. Certainly customers will not buy without clear value justification and trust in you. But what else can you do to increase your chances that you, not your competitor, get the business that is out there?
YOUR EMAILS – THE IMPRESSION YOU MAKE
Today, e-mail is probably the most common way of communicating with clients. I continue to be amazed by the e-mails that I get to see that salespeople have sent to their clients.

Proposal Coaching: Template and 8 Questions to Ask
Your salespeople need your support. And while they may try to entice you to write or help them with their proposals, in fact they need your support in the form of coaching, not doing their work for them.
Final Presentations: It’s Not Over Until...
Great news! You've made your presentation and are one of two finalists down from six - pretty exciting, especially in light of the extended sales cycles you've been facing. Your customer has given you a date of two weeks from today when the company will announce its final decision. Your contact said he'd get back to you. What do you do in the interim to increase your winning?
Make a List, Delete Excuses
Selling is as much mind-set as skill set - especially today. Sure the economy has made it harder to conduct business and find and close opportunities. It has also made it harder to decipher what obstacles are due to the economy and what are due to our own performance. A 2009 DI study with 1600 corporate customers showed that customers attributed 33% of lost deals to things they feel were in the salesperson's control.

Chatter Matters!
Will Salesforce.com's Chatter revolutionize and accelerate call preparation, communication, sales coaching, and sharing of knowledge?

Sales leads: the good, the bad, and the opportunity
There are cold leads, warm leads, hot leads, targeted leads. But is there a commonly accepted definition as to what a good one actually is? Jim Brodo, Richardson's SVP of sales review the various categories of a good lead and how to optimize and allocate resources for following up and nurturing the various levels of leads that are developed.
The Value YOU Bring Is As Important As Your Products
What you bring as YOU, the value you add to helping customers meet their business objectives, your ability to help them see a broader perspective, is as important, often more important, than what your products will do for them. Lately, there has been a focus on the need for salespeople to increase their business acumen - and rightly so.

Other Richardson Company Related Articles

Plain English Guide to Employee Handbooks
The company employee handbook is one of the most important communication tools between your company and your employees. Not only does it set forth your expectations for your employees, but it also describes what they can expect from the company. It is essential that your company has one and that it be as clear and unambiguous as possible. Make certain that it is written in an understandable language which makes the company's policies accessible.
Human Resource Management
Ask any CEO of any Fortune 500 company what the most important part of their company is, what is the one single thing that drives their company to reach new heights of success, and I guarantee you they will tell you one thing: people. People are the power behind any company, big or small. So how do you keep your people happy? How do you ensure they are working to maximum capacity and boosting your company’s productivity? The answer comes in three not so simple words: human resource management.

What is Your Marketing Hook?
Company incentives have often been described as “golden handcuffs”, they make employees want to stay, or punish them if they leave. These company incentives come in many forms and example of a company incentive could be a loan for further education and as long as that employee commits to the company for a certain length of time, the loan is forgiven. However if the employee leaves the loan can become due and payable on demand. Employers will usually make these types of company incentives available to employees who are valuable to their company to ensure they remain loyal.
Employees are the real motivators to success
Company incentives have often been described as “golden handcuffs”, they make employees want to stay, or punish them if they leave. These company incentives come in many forms and example of a company incentive could be a loan for further education and as long as that employee commits to the company for a certain length of time, the loan is forgiven. However if the employee leaves the loan can become due and payable on demand. Employers will usually make these types of company incentives available to employees who are valuable to their company to ensure they remain loyal.
NO BUDGET – UNLESS OF COURSE…
Many of the customers we are talking to may be like your customers. Their budgets have either been cut or all but vanished. What can you do? Linda Richardson article "No Budget - Unless of Course.." explores some helpful tips.
5 Key Things To Look For In A Sponsor
Ok, so you did massive research about the company you currently partnered up with - right? How much of a research did you do? So often when new recruits join up with a company, they are not at all too sure what the company is all about, what the products are and what it is they should be doing to promote the company / resources or services. They merely see dollar signs in front of them. Take time out to look at the person who you are signing up with. How competent are they as a mentor and upline sponsor.
Virtual Sales Conversations
Linda Richardson presents a few tips to follow to help you engage in productive and professional virtual sales calls
What can a Business Coach do for my company and Why Should I hire one?
In this article Phil Richardson, a Licensed Professional Business Coach and experienced Business Advisor, Consultant and Corporate executive shares with business owners and executives the "Inside Scoop" on What a business coach does and Why they might want to hire one.
Realizing Your Entrepreneurial Vision
Question: Can you become a successful entrepreneur? Answer: Yes, but you can’t do it alone. Entrepreneurs begin by creating a vision. The vision states what your company does, why it is in business and what it will achieve. From this vision, a company strategy emerges. It describes the actions the company will take to make the vision a reality. Your company’s future pain and success is a function of 1) whether your vision serves the needs of the marketplace and 2) how successfully your company implements its strategy.

Money Speaks - Bankers Jargon! Doesn't anyone speak English?
In simple terms, debt to equity explains the financial health of the company. For example; suppose your company has a debt to equity ratio of 4 to 1. To a banker, that means there is $4.00 in debt compared to $1.00 invested in the company. In other words, your lenders own more of your company than you do. So, if you were asked to lend money to your company at this type of ratio, would you?
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