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Salespeople Tagged Articles
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Selling Power And The Power Of Choice
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| The one thing we all have in common is selling power and the ability to choose. It’s the choices you make that determines your selling success. Why leave it to chance when you can make intelligent choices? |
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Salespeople: What Works - Commission or Retainer
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| One of our coaching clients asked for some thoughts on structuring rewards for their sales people, and the following notes arose from our thinking on the subject.
On reflection, even though it's just an outline, I thought it may be relevant to some of you, so here you go:
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How can you find the best of the best in sales?
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| Many people believe great sales-people are born, not made but I disagree because sales is a process that can be taught to anyone and it is simply how the process is applied that separates good from great. Success in sales comes from skill development, attitude, confidence and behaviour.
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How to avoid being a pest in your sales follow up
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| Did you know that one of the biggest gripes against salespeople by decision makers is the lack of follow up?
Many people resist following up because they find it uncomfortable and don’t want to seem pushy or annoying and many people don’t follow up because they simply forget. This lack of follow-up presents a great opportunity for those who are organized and take the time to do it. |
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Overcoming Sales Objections
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| Objections are simply reasons or concerns that a prospective client has as to why they won't make a decision when you want them to. You will hear statements such as:
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Quick Prospecting Tools
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| Do you get frustrated constantly sourcing new sales and contact information? |
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Sales Tips to give your sales a boost in 2010
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| customers, the same results can be achieved.
Besides, you can find new customers from referrals within your existing client base.
Here is a couple of quick tips to help you build your revenue in 2010. |
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Quick Tips to Presenting Proposals
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| These quick tips will help to reduce some of the 'discomfort' that can be associated when presenting your pricing options |
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SALES TIPS AND TRICKS
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| Want to increase sales but don’t have the sales skills or worried you will come across as an aggressive, pushy sales person? The key to developing confidence in sales is by being flexible and open-minded about trying something new! |
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Sales Tips for Selling in a challenging economy
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| It’s difficult to ignore the news of the financial crisis that is occurring around the world and the fear and uncertainty that it is creating. Here in Australia many companies have been tightening their budgets and reducing their spending over recent months and it looks like it’s going to continue. So what does this mean for those of us running businesses or working in sales? |
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Sales Tips for the First Appointment
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| “It’s all about planning and preparation”
It’s amazing how many sales people and business owners I talk to who under-estimate the value and importance of planning and preparing for a first appointment.
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All in A Dogs Way Can Make You More Sales
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| Dogs are great teachers of how to sell easier and better. And if you think about a dog's life, it's an easy one. Some dog behaviors can serve as models for do's and don'ts for salespeople. |
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Five Attributes To Lead You To S.A.L.E.S. Success
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| Now, more than ever, it's important for salespeople to go back to basics. Here are five attributes that have led to my 20 years of success in sales. See how you can develop or strengthen them in yourself to help get you to where you want to be. |
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Should work cells be used in Sales and Marketing?
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| Followers of my blog have seen how I use DMAIC principles in discussing the marketing funnel. And in reviewing, discussed how adding toll gates for identifying when prospects should move from one stage to the next. Inside the stages, we have different marketing programs that are taking place. But I really never talked about the personnel that were handling these programs. In most sales and marketing applications, you will have marketing assigned by the duties they do and salespeople assigned to certain accounts. I think it might be interesting to consider what we have learned in U-shaped or L-shaped work cells. |
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Why Salespeople Fail...
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| In this day in age, no one seems to want to EARN anything anymore. In SALES, you have no choice! What you put in, is what you get out, period. In this outline, you'll learn why salespeople fail and ways to go about selling the old-fashioned way, driving on-going, recurring revenue. |
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12 Questions Critical to Achieving Sales Plans
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| As we sat down with CEOs at the beginning of the year it became obvious that most organizations have "dreams" instead of "goals." The difference between a "dream" and a "goal" is an action plan. |
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Close Faster By Wearing Your Prospects’ Shoes
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| There are many skills salespeople need to learn to be successful. In teaching these skills I have found that there are two words in the English language that most salespeople fail to clearly understand in meaning and application: “sympathy” and “empathy.” Not knowing the difference, and not knowing which will help you earn sales success, can cause significant delays in deals or may break them. |
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Why You Need A Sales System
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| Today there is a hyper focus on just one area of the sales process. There are more books written about it and more information available about than any other area of the sales process...I am, of course, speaking about the close. Recently, the close has become the end all and be all of a sales encounter, perhaps because of the pressure that salespeople feel to meet ever increasing sales targets. |
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The 10 Second Sale
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| When you are attempting to convince a new prospect to meet with you, you have about 10 seconds to make a first impression. In that first few seconds, you must break through the noise of all the other salespeople who have called on your prospect and you must make an impression that is irresistible. |
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Guaranteed Sales Success in 2010
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| There are no guarantees in life or in selling. Yet we look for one each time we buy and so do our clients. Shouldn’t we, as salespeople, be looking for guarantees too? Guarantees that we will reach our goals? Regularly we witness great salespeople overcome the odds, the economy or the competition to be successful. Haven’t you always wondered how they do it? |
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Sales Commitment and Shadow of the Leader
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| “You have to understand that people stand in the shadow of the leader.” This comment came from the top executive of a very large corporate client of ours. And I had to ask, “George, what do you mean, shadow of the leader? He replied, “It’s pretty simple, Tony. People will do what they see the leader do, not what the leader says.” |
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Sales Mission Complete
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| I recently had the great honor and privilege of visiting our United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. I was overwhelmed by the courage and passion of those that occupy this post. They are truly remarkable people and I was struck by how much the disciplines they practice relate to selling. Yes, it might be a stretch to tie what happens at West Point to sales and selling, but not much of a stretch. This group of young people consistently demonstrates at an extraordinary level all of those competencies necessary to succeed in selling: courage, desire, commitment, persistence and ethics. They are sales people in fatigues. They spend their day selling others on the connection between athletics and winning on the battlefield. One of the metrics for success: bringing everyone back alive. That is life or death. |
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Selling to Specialized Markets - Associations, Buying Groups & Chambers of Commerce
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| In virtually all industries today, the competition is fierce as salespeople are competing for the same customer base. So how can you differentiate your services and reach large groups of new prospects? |
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Hire Salespeople Now to Gain Maximum Momentum
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| Go into the economic recovery with maximum momentum. Consider hiring salespeople now to propel your company ahead. |
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How to Motivate Small Business Salespeople When Times Are Tough ©
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| Invest In Achieving Sales Results Now, and Win Long Term Benefits! Closing the sale is not typically a competition of resources (unless you allow it); it is a competition of priorities. A buyer¡¦s time and money are being given to someone, right? So, you have to manifest more value to win that competition. Here's how to manifest more value. |
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Are you making the best use of your sales time?
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| What is the most important part of our job as salespeople? I think it is to get new business while maintaining what we have. Therefore, if that is the most important part of our job, what do we need to make the difference? Yes, your appropriate behaviour, but that is not the answer I was looking for. Without prospects or customers we have nothing.
Therefore, prospects and customers are the most important component in our jobs. Because of that, we have to be constantly thinking of prospects and clients in terms of when they want to be contacted or visited, what their needs and desires are and what we can do for them in relation to satisfying those needs and desires. |
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No is a Positive Outcome in Sales
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| There are numerous studies that reveal that 87% of sales people working the telephone give up after the first attempt. By extrapolation this means that only 13% follow up more than once. Another 10% give up after a second call. Only about 3% of reps follow up more than twice. Which do you think have a higher rate of success?
To get more positive responses you have to hear more nos. You hear more no’s (and more positive responses) by following up every lead and every opportunity. To get more positive responses you must be tenacious on following up leads. Get the ‘no’s’ out of the way. Being perseverant and persistent is the key and it requires two things: a follow-up system and self-discipline.
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The Eight Sales Dysfunctions of a Salesperson
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| If you're like most companies getting fewer opportunities to create sales this year, you need to pay attention to all wins AND all losses in your sales efforts! There are specific things being done by salespeople every day that create the LOSS of sales and the LOSS of customers. Are you sure you and/or your salespeople are NOT doing these?
It’s challenging enough in the marketplace today gaining new business from existing customers and gaining the trust of new customers to take a chance with you. The current state of the economy is driving fear and uncertainty which is driving decisions to new places in the organization. Those decisions are being made slower than ever and often times, by committees. On top of that, the competition is doing crazy things, dropping prices and trimming margins to all-time lows. |
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The Dreaded Monday Morning Sales Meeting
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| Do They GET TO GO or HAVE TO GO?
For years as a speaker/trainer/coach, salespeople have approached me with feedback regarding their regular company sales meetings. This is what I hear:
-The meetings are boring with little to no direction
-The meetings turn into individual gripe sessions
-The meetings turn into complaint sessions by management
-The meetings tend to “bring down” the reps rather than “pump up” the reps
-The meetings tend to be filled with reports, data, stats, and rules
-The meetings never start on time
-The meetings never follow an agenda
-The meetings never end on time
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Do your people tend to “go through the motions” in your sales meetings? Do they complain about having to come to these meetings regularly? Do you sometimes agree with them?
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Sell Value Not Discounts
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| Sell value not discounts is a worthy and profitable concept to consider. In the long run selling value is more profitable - learn how to do it! |
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Practical Tips for Making Prospecting a “Win-Win” Proposition
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| Of all the competencies associated with superior sales skill, prospecting is the weakest link. Most salespeople despise prospecting. "I'm too busy," "I don't have any prospects," "I've tried and that doesn't work" are just a few of the excuses you hear or may have said yourself.
Yet effective prospecting is a vital part of successful campaigns to gain new business. Becoming a master prospector can spell the difference between being a merely competent salesperson and a stellar one. So what holds us back and how can we succeed more often? The reality is most salespeople fear prospecting because they are set up for failure. |
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Analyzing the Profitability of Product Lines
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| Firms that do not analyze the individual profitability of their product lines risk wasting time and money chasing the wrong opportunities. Salespeople who spend the majority of their time chasing large, low margin sales, close the odd big deal, but do so at a very high opportunity cost. Does this situation sound familiar to you? |
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Selling in the lead up to Christmas
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| Well it’s hard to believe but it’s only 6 weeks until Christmas and this time of year always brings with it challenges for both business owners and salespeople. As we approach the festive season and the business year draws to a close, many decision makers prefer to put off decisions and new business meetings until the New Year. This is both challenging and de-motivating for salespeople but also frustrating and stressful for business owners, who need to keep generating revenue.
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Smooth Sailing or Storms Ahead ? How to use the Sales Pipeline to predict your future
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| A sales pipeline is simply a forecast that you or your salespeople prepare monthly which lists the customers that are likely to buy in a given time frame, the value of the sale and when it is likely to close. It is an essential tool for business owners and sales managers to identify where you are and where you need to be in order to meet budget. |
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What Sales Leaders Don't Know about Ego and Empathy
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| Empathy and Ego are both a lot like food - you can't have too much of it or it will make you sick. And if you don't have enough of it you'll be weak. They are really best plotted on bell curves, not bar graphs! |
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Derek Jeters Shows Salespeople How To Convert Leads to Opportunities
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| If your Star Salesperson prospects like crazy it makes your job very simple. You just point and say "Do what she does and one day you'll get the same results". Then you hold your salespeople accountable to those expectations, let your top performer lead by example and watch what happens. |
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Seven Sales Facts to Ponder
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| From a management perspective, the goal of any sales initiative should be to improve the quantity and quality of the sales efforts of your salespeople. Its primary purpose is to provide focus-process and discipline that will enhance territory performance. This enhancement will lead to an increase in the sales, profitability and market share for each individual territory. |
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Has Your Sales Force Lost Their Passion
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| Nowadays, salespeople must be problem solvers able to generate solutions for customers in their time of need. Therefore, they must possess a great deal of knowledge about your customers' business. They must actually define what those needs are because the customer may not know, nor take the time to explain if they do know. Customers want you to have the knowledge and intelligence to comprehend and analyze their problems before showing up at the door. Customers will listen and buy from the salesperson that finds the "pain" and takes it away. Sometimes going back to the basics is part of the answer to rekindling the passion. That means revisiting best practice in all areas including targeting, goal setting, customer profiling and action planning. |
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Don't Be A Finger Pointer
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| Are you an exceptional sales manager? You can be you know. It all starts with your leadership abilities and can end quickly if you're a finger-pointer.
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6 Proven Strategies For Sales Managers
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| Do you know why most sales managers aren't exceptional? Well, because they do the same things that ordinary sales managers do. Here are 6 proven strategies that will separate you from the pack.
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Lesson #3: Nice Guys Can Finish First
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| In creating eBay, Omidyar began with five basic values: “We believe people are basically good; we believe everyone has something to contribute; we believe that an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people; we recognize and respect everyone as a unique individual; we encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated.”
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Lesson #4: Make Your Market Your Manpower
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| Walker knew who her market was and she knew what she had to do to reach them. While marketing strategies of the past focused mostly on advertising, Walker knew that the majority of black women at the time were unable to read. Thus, she began a uniquely successful campaign of face to face network marketing. But what made Walker a success was not just the fact that she knew and understood her market; she was, after all, her own best customer. Walker was able to get the market on her side by using it as manpower. |
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One Copy at a Time: Kinko’s Takes Off
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| Orfalea had been a student at USC when he noticed a copy machine in the school library. He realized that few people had access to the new technology and decided to do something about it. With a $5,000 loan from the bank, Orfalea rented out a 100-square-foot garage behind a hamburger stand near his campus. In addition to selling school supplies, Orfalea bought a copier and began charging 2.5-cent copies. The store was so small that the copier had to be used out on the sidewalk in front. He called his business “Kinko’s” after his childhood nickname. |
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Q What sort of bonuses should we pay
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| A. "It's not about the money."
Usually, when people say this, they are lying.
Except, it turns out, at work. |
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Referrals: Now They\'re Asking and You\'re Making
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| As entrepreneurs and salespeople, referrals are our lifeblood because they jumpstart the trust-building with potential customers, partners and suppliers. In my last column I wrote about the oft-forgotten sales and networking tactic of asking our customers for referrals. Now, let's switch hats for a moment. What happens when we're the ones receiving the request? It's certainly a familiar situation, because we're as well-connected as they come. |
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Look for the Loose Brick
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| I hear salespeople say that speaking to a particular prospect was like "hitting a brick wall." The prospect's guard was up in full force. The prospect seemed to get bored or, worse yet, to actually become defensive or offensive, as the case may be, every time the salesperson mentioned a product benefit or feature. It pains me to hear this, as I've known exactly what it feels like to be in such a position. |
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The Power of Asking: 7 Ways to Boost Your Business
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| The gift called “asking” has been around for a long, long time. One of life’s fundamental truths states, “Ask and you shall receive.” Kids are masters at using this gift, but we adults seem to have lost our ability to ask. We come up with all sorts of excuses and reasons to avoid any possibility of rejection. |
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Changing the future
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| That's what marketers do, after all. We spend time and money to change the role of our products and services sometime in the future (whereas salespeople try to change the now). |
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Never Sell Alone
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| Sales can be a lonely game. During an economic downturn, sometimes it can be downright depressing. One of the best ways to keep morale high is being able to look around and know that you're dealing with the tough times as a team. You don't have to weather the storm alone. |
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Stay Focused on Your Dreams
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| When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember
that your initial objective was to drain the swamp!” |
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Should Social Media Replace Cold-Calling?
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| Has social media led to the abandonment of time-tested elements such as cold-calling & meeting face-to-face with customers or they can co-exist & be profitable.
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Top Three Ways to Become a Sales Truth Teller
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| Many people believe that it's impossible to close deals while remaining truthful. However, as the economy gets more and more competitive, it’s vital that salespeople are honest with themselves, their team, and their clients. Learn how to be honest with yourself, tell the truth to your prospects and clients, and stay in touch with your customers’ needs in order to close more business! |
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Your Buyer is Smarter than You
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| Buyers are smart & purchasing departments do their jobs well...Here are a few simple approaches for a salesperson to follow in order to thrive with them.
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Upside Down Salesmanship
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| Upside down salesmanship is a different approach to selling. Actually it's different and better. |
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How To Be Successful in Sales
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| Do these 21 Characteristics from the 1930s hold true today? |
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9 Steps to Close More Sales
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| There are typically three things that salespeople want to know how to improve and these include (1) see more people, (2) manage their time better and (3) close more business. |
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Why Buyers Don't Like Salespeople
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| Most salespeople bring to their buyers only information. At the end of the day, you as a salesperson must ask yourself, "Am I merely a conduit of information?" If you are, then you're wasting your time, your company's time, and your customer's time.
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Million Dollar Conversations - How to grow your business with your best customers
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| A question I sometimes ask managers and salespeople when I speak at conferences is, “How much business do you think you may be leaving on the table with your existing customers?” Most lament that there’s lots of room for growth in gaining more of their customers’ wallet share. I believe that most companies – even small businesses - have at least a million dollars worth of extra potential revenues sitting in their filing cabinets. The problem is employees aren’t effective enough at cross-selling and cross-referencing their other products and services. Let’s talk about how to get more of this business out of your filing cabinet and into your bank account. |
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Two Types Of Salespeople
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| There are two groups of salespeople. Which do you belong to? The improvisors or the professionals. Kepp reading to learn more.
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Tale of Two Clients - Sales Training! :) versus Saaaales Training (:
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| Here's an interesting comparison for you.
Two client companies are on the exact same sales development time line. (Same time line but separate from each other - they don't even know about each other)
Both of their sales forces went through sales force evaluations at the exact same time.
Both of their sales management teams were developed at the same time.
Both of their sales organizations received sales infrastructure help (sales process, sales pipeline, metrics, sales recruiting process, etc). |
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How Your Salespeople Can Eliminate the Competition
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| If your company is like most, you have lots of competition and some of them will do anything to get the business. How would you like to eliminate your competition? I don't mean putting them out of business (some of you wouldn't mind that at all) but I do mean getting them out of the way...
There are three ways to eliminate increasing competition for a declining number of opportunities: |
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My Sales Process, Strategies and Tactics in Your Voice
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| It is extremely important for your salespeople to utilize the strategies and tactics in the context of the sales process that was introduced - AND IN THEIR OWN VOICE. They can't ever stop sounding like themselves!
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Can Your Salespeople Sell More Effectively by Asking More Questions?
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| Selling by asking questions is hard. A list of questions isn't the answer. Left to their own devices, your salespeople won't be able to create the kind of questions that are needed. You might not be able to either. |
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When Agreement is Really Disagreement - Happy Ears for Salespeople
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| Happy Ears or Effective Salespeople? It all comes down to training, coaching, observation skills, commitment and practice. When put that way, there is as much burdon on you as there is on your salespeople. Are you up for this challenge? |
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Election Day - Like Decision Making Day for Salespeople
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| The presentation, and still later, the proposal, are simply a formality that leads to getting the business when the selling that was conducted earlier was effective. |
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Effective or Easiest - Which Path Will Your Salespeople Choose?
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| There are always one or two crucial turning points in every sales cycle where your salespeople must choose between asking the tough question that's called for, or saying what's comfortable for them. 74% of the sales population will always go for comfort because it's the path of least resistance. |
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Do Salespeople Have to Give up Control to Their Prospects?
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| I just read Why Won't Anyone Return My !*#@$% Call by Don Fornes over at Software Advice. Don's read of the current selling environment, specifically cold-calling, entry point into the sales process, and the table stakes just to play are dead-on. Most of his conclusions are good as well.
I disagree with his article when he implies that we should be resigned to the fact that there isn't much to be done except building trust until the prospect is ready to engage.
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Stop a Sales Slump in its Tracks
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| I know a few salespeople who are in the middle of some incredible sales slumps. They are suddenly not finding new opportunities, having trouble moving existing opportunities in their pipeline, not getting the opportunities that are closable, closed, and starting to feel down about the whole turn of events. Where to start! |
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Preparing for Sales Training - Becoming Change Ready
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| I just took a talented group of salespeople through three days of training. Perhaps you've been in a situation just like that at some point. There are several ways this group can approach integration, application and execution at the end of the training. |
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The Single Biggest Mistake That Salespeople Make
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| Ask 10 people and you'll get 10 different answers about the biggest mistake that salespeople make. Ask the question a bit differently and I will give you a different answer too. But ask the question in the title - "What is the single biggest mistake that salespeople make?", with the key word being mistake - something they do incorrectly rather than due to a weakness - and I can provide data to back it up. There are actually 3 mistakes that are nearly always made but 2 of them happen as a result of the single biggest mistake. |
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Why the Relationship is So Important to the Sales Outcome
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| Many people have written extensively on the topic of relationships and selling. One common topic is that people only buy from people they like and the other is how to develop strong relationships. There is nothing wrong with either of those topics but they surely miss the mark in two important areas. |
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The Relationship Between the Relationship and the Sales Outcome Part 2
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| Have you ever worked with salespeople that were so bad you thought, "She couldn't close a door!"? And have you ever worked with salespeople that were so good that you thought, "She could sell white to rice!"? |
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Tale of Two Clients - Sales Training :) vs. SAAAALES TRAINING :(
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| You've heard it before. It flows down hill. Your organization can only be as effective as the weakest leadership link. When it comes to a sales development initiative, you must start out committed and remain committed to drive the process until the change you demand has been accomplished. Anything short of that is a formula for failure. |
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Why Salespeople Fail to Make Needed Changes
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| If your salespeople are going through any kind of up-to-date sales training or coaching, then they know they're supposed to ask questions and resist presenting company or product features and benefits. In the classroom they get it. In the classroom they can do it. In a coaching session it works. But as soon as you plug them in to a real sales call, by phone or in person, they revert to being obsolete. |
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How to Achieve Consistency on the Sales Force
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| I have always believed that in sales, the three most important attributes (not skills) are the willingness to do what it takes to succeed (commitment) the passion for being the best (desire), and the discipline to repeat the required behaviors and activities (consistency). |
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The Whiners - Salespeople Who Get Your Attention
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| Your top performers (real sales professionals) aren't the ones taking their time (and yours) to whine. Oh no. This stuff is the exclusive domain of the under achievers and they whine to justify their lack of success. Whining might distract you from their dismal performance and further distract them from performing the work they're supposed to be doing. |
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Salespeople Become More Effective But Can They Get Worse?
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| In most cases, especially when effective training and coaching has taken place, significant to dramatic improvement occurs. Occassionally though, a salesperson will appear to be worse - weaker - than the first time. How could this be?
I'll explain some of the scenarios where this should not be alarming, as well as some where it should.
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Salespeople Become More Effective Part 2
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| You must talk about Sales Process and, assuming it's been formally developed, structured, optimized and introduced, include it in every daily coaching and development call so that the backdrop for your conversations is "Where in the process are you?" In Baseline Selling, that would sound like "Which Base are you on?" |
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Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow Could be Your Veteran Salespeople
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| Barry Manilow dominated the 70's with hits like "I Write the Songs" and "Copacabana". Rod Stewart dominated the 70's and 80's with hits like "Tonight's the Night" and "Hot Legs". But they are far more alike than that. They are both skinny 65 year-olds with coiffed blond hair and in the last few years received horrible face lifts. Oh yeah, women love them. Could they be the same guy? Were they separated at birth?
And they both behave like veteran salespeople!
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Improve How Your Sales Force Sells by Phone
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| If your salespeople are unable to interest their prospects there is zero chance of reaching the goal for the call which, depending on the salesperson's role, could be anything from a qualified lead to a scheduled appointment to a transactional sale. |
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10 CEO's and the Impact They Have on their Sales Forces
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| I don't mean to paint a picture that depicts CEO's as the problem, but in some companies, they are the problem. In 9 of the 10 examples I described above they were the problem but unlike this article, it happens in only about 50% of the cases, not 90%. So if you are a CEO or know one, what should you do when getting help for your sales organization? |
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10 Attributes of the CEO Who Drives Sales and More
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| My second conversation was with an effective CEO who is completely unlike those that I described in the other article. My good CEO has the following 10 qualities that have a positive impact on the sales force: |
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How to Close the Deal Your Salespeople Can't Close
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| Sometimes, when your salespeople are trying to close a sale, the deal stalls, gets put-off, or simply doesn't close. This is followed by, well, follow up, leading to more put-offs. There are many reasons why this happens but for the purpose of this article, let's simply assume that the prospect has every reason to buy and the salesperson did not do anything glaringly wrong along the way. Simply a closable opportunity that hasn't closed yet. In situations like this, there are usually two things going on: |
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How to Refine Your Sales Selection Criteria and Candidate Pool
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| Your candidate pool is comprised of the quantity and quality of candidates who respond to your online posting. If you are not happy with either the quality or quantity of your pool, then your ad, title or job site settings are to blame. |
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Bench Strength - The Key to Replacing Salespeople
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| When you send your replacements into the field, are your fingers crossed hoping they don't make mental errors that help competitors close business or are you confident because your replacements are better than those you replaced?
Those are the two keys right there:
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Recruiting Strong Salespeople - The Sales Candidate Pipeline
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| Recruiting Salespeople - again?
Yes. I cannot write enough about this!
But, as usual, I'll address recruiting from a slightly different perspective this time - the candidate pipeline. Not to be confused with the candidate pool which is simply a single component of the pipeline.
Your sales pipeline should have four stages:
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How You Can Get Your Salespeople to Do What They Don't
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| Please read this article the way I intended to write it. First, what it is not.
It is not an article about how I lost 40 pounds. Nor is it an article about why I lost 40 pounds. Instead, please read this as an article about how to get people to change.
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Sales Coaching is Like Baseball - How Do You Rate?
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| Really? Whiffle Ball in the back yard? Sandlot? Little League? Babe Ruth? High School? American Legion? College? Cape Cod League? Independent League? First Round Draft Pick? Signed by a Major League Team? High Minors? Cup of Coffee in the Bigs? Utility Player on a Major League Team? Every Day Player? All Star? MVP? Hall of Fame?
When it comes to coaching, most sales managers have done the baseball equivilent of Sandlot - they messed around at it and had some fun.
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Game 7 - There is No Tomorrow with This Sales Opportunity
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| Don't turn opportunities where there IS a tomorrow into a desperate, "How much of a price concession do we have to make?", last ditch effort to close it today scenario, but do turn a customer/prospect-initiated deadline into a Game 7 scenario where you do whatever it takes to earn that business! |
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Overcome Call Reluctance - Get Your Salespeople to Prospect
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| By decreasing both the amount of resistance and time spent overcoming the resistance, you might be able to make it less overwhelming and therefore easier for your call reluctant salespeople to experience prospecting success. |
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Rejection Proof - The Science Behind Success in Sales
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| The stronger a salesperson is, the less likely rejection is to have a major effect. That said, there are effective salespeople who have a rejection problem but they manage it better than their less effective colleagues. There are also some very ineffective salespeople who don't care about being rejected. In fact, their lack of caring about it may even lead to their ineffectiveness since their strategy rarely includes consideration of how to avoid resistance! |
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Top 5 Sales Recruiting Observations of 2010
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| Today, I'll make some observations about the sales recruiting activity taking place this summer that either reinforces some of the things I've said in the past, or modifies my original stance.
In no particular order, but of equal importance:
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Which Salespeople Use Bad Judgement and Burn Bridges?
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| You want your salespeople to get decisions instead of taking stalls, put-offs and objections. Some of your salespeople are better at this than others. I've written extensively about the difference between the required skills versus the strengths that support closing, as well as recognizing and dealing with put-offs. Today, I will discuss the difference between not getting the desired reaction or behavior, not getting a decision and burning a bridge. |
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Sales Just Can't Be This Easy - Can It?
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| Touch or no touch, you can't take short-cuts. Even if touch does have a positive effect, I would never consider making it part of a sales process as in, complete step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, touch, close. No way! |
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This One Tip Helps Salespeople Close More Business
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| Make your solution ideal, both in terms of it being needs and cost appropriate, with no options, and if you did what you were supposed to do throughout the sales process you will make it easy for your prospect to make a quick decision. |
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More Sales Coaching Leads to Accelerated Growth
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| Your salespeople have the opportunity to replay their last call - one that probably had a horrible ending - and learn from it...
Your salespeople can experience a live version of reincarnation every day!
There are two keys that can't be overlooked though:
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Sales Force Compensation - X Marks the Spot
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| Compensation is usually simpler than most companies make it. Most companies seem to either over compensate or under compensate on salary. Most companies tend to do the same with commissions. |
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10 Obstacles That Most Salespeople Can't Overcome
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| An average/ineffective salesperson may not be able to overcome any of the ten with the possible exception of relationship. Some salespeople, while strategically and tactically challenged, are quite good at developing relationships. Unfortunately, while a relationship is important, people won't buy if that's the only thing a salesperson brings to the table. |
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Top 20 Requirements - How Salespeople Can Be Better at Closing
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| While salespeople can get better at closing, closing is an outcome, and with the exception of real estate and banking, not really an event. When we evaluate sales forces and look at their ability to close, they may possess some of the strengths and skills that are part of the Sales Core Competency called Closing, but most of those attributes are used prior to, not during, closing time. The ability to close depends on the following 20 variables (in no particular order) that a salesperson brings to the table - or not: |
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Compelling Reasons for Your Salespeopole to Go Mobile
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| Good Sales Managers know how important it is for their salespeople to uncover needs.
But it goes way beyond needs.
As I detail in Baseline Selling - How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball, it requires that your salespeople learn about their prospects' compelling reasons to buy. Not just their needs. The issues, problems and frustrations - and even the consequences - that would cause them to spend money and spend it with your company, instead of your competitor.
But it goes well beyond compelling reasons.
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10 Reasons Why Sales Commitment Has Become More Important
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| A comparison of selling today with selling over the past 20 years shows that selling is significantly more challenging today than ever before. Let's take a look at 10 of the factors that explain this shift in difficulty: |
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Trigger Events - The Anatomy of Sales Wisdom
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| When a prospect says or does something it should trigger the salesperson's time machine, bringing him back to an important sales event where something like the current scenario took place before. |
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5 Frustrations that Derail the Sales Force
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| I write a lot about the things that frustrate Presidents, CEO's, Sales VP's and Salespeople. Yesterday, somebody asked what frustrates me so I attempted to tackle that question here.
I'm very steady and what you see on Monday, you'll probably get on Tuesday and Wednesday too. That said, there are things that will make me eat faster or more often, and here you can read my top 5:
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Game 7 - There is No Tomorrow with These Sales Opportunities
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| don't turn opportunities where there IS a tomorrow into a desperate, "How much of a price concession do we have to make?", last ditch effort to close it today scenario, but do turn a customer/prospect-initiated deadline into a Game 7 scenario where you do whatever it takes to earn that business! |
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The Delayed Impact of Lack of Sales Commitment
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| If you are a client, upon learning that a top producer lacks commitment you might be asking, "How can that be?" |
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With Blown Call, Jim Joyce Succeeds at a Sales Core Competency
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| The certain perfect game is just like the sure things that your salespeople report. "We're gonna get this business - it's a slam dunk." Or, "Everything has been agreed to - just waiting for final approval." Or, "We're the only ones they're talking to - it's ours for the taking!" And then...it isn't. |
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The Magic of Jiffy Lube, Sales Adaptability and Plagiarism
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| Perhaps you've noticed that while driving past a Jiffy Lube during (slow times for them) your commute there may be a mechanic out front, holding a sign, offering a discount, hoping you'll pull in. I don't know about you, but I am not particularly moved by a guy in a jump suit waving for me to stop. But it made me wonder, does this work? |
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But I'm a Sales Guy - The Story of Motivation and Compensation
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| A Sales VP and his CEO were in the conference room and each time the CEO brought up a problem, we asked the Sales VP to elaborate. Each time he began with, "Well I'm a sales guy so I know this stuff..."
Yes and No.
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Top 10 Video Blunders When Used as a Sales Aid
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| It should go without saying that your videos should be professionally produced and directed. The do it yourself videos made on the fly are prone to all ten of the mistakes listed above. Unless you are in the marketing, advertising or videography business, you have no business doing this yourself unless you want to give people reasons not to buy from you. |
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3 Strikes and Your Out - The Need for Sales Force Consistency
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| I place a higher value on consistency than I do on talent. I don't care how much potential a salesperson has. If they aren't performing the basics - consistently - then the talent is wasted. |
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10 Tips for Hiring Salespeople for Your Company
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| This is a perfect time to be hiring - the economy is quickly turning around - heading into an upswing - and you must have excellent salespeople to find opportunities and get them closed by outselling your competitors. |
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Sales Tips for Trade Shows and Major Accounts
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| The exhibitor and visitor attendance is more good news relative to confidence, spending and outlook in the business sector. The bad news is that the exhibitors were clueless as to how to get people to stop at their booths and engage. |
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Are You Looking for Salespeople with Entrepreneurial Spirit?
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| While most salespeople don't have Entrepreneurial Passion, most Entrepreneurs aren't very good salespeople. They lack the DNA, skills and competencies necessary to consistently outsell their competitors, but they (sometimes) compensate for it with their 24/7 passion. Can you have both? Yes - entrepreneurs can be trained to sell effectively! And there are some salespeople who actually have this love of what they are selling. The key is to be able to successfully attract, identify, on board and retain those rare salespeople. |
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The Role of Preparation in Developing Top Salespeople
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| The Internet has made it easier than ever for prospects to find your company, a benefit of Sales 2.0. The upside is that your leads are coming from unexpected places and you are getting audiences with prospects you may not have found ten years ago. The downside is that this has changed the sales process, accelerated the sales cycle and in some cases, made it more difficult than ever for companies to close these new found opportunities. |
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Sales 2.0 - Answer to Our Prayers or Costly Distraction?
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| Every day I read, hear and get asked about the various modern methods for salespeople to meet, engage and get in front of prospects. Every day, the emphasis moves a little further toward the Sales 2.0 approach to getting found - LinkedIn, Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, E-blasts, and Youtube. |
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Xobni as Sales Assistant, Pivots Help Close Sales
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| How to use Pivots to change the direction of a sales call or business strategy. |
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When Sales Goals Change but Behavior and Results Don't
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| Suppose that you need your salespeople to find significantly more new business. Perhaps you've wanted this for a while but it's only recently that you communicated this to your salespeople. You've changed the goal but after a month your salespeople's behavior and results haven't changed at all. |
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Who Do You Call When Your Sales Forecast is Busted?
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| When your short-term sales forecast indicates that you'll come up short this period (month), what do you direct your salespeople to do in order to fill the gap? |
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Football's Pitch Count and the Connection to the Sales Force
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| Herm Edwards, currently of ESPN and formerly the Head Coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, was interviewed on WEEI, Boston's Sports Talk Radio station today. He said a couple of things that were quite compelling: |
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Anatomy of the Worst Sales Call Ever
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| It's easier to talk about some of the things he failed to do since he didn't do anything correctly. If we were to perform an analysis working backwards from the end of his (can't really call what he did a) sales process: |
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Lousy Salespeople and Great Salespeople - Line Item or Investment?
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| Lousy salespeople are a line item but great salespeople are an investment. It's actually much worse than that. The line item on your lousy salespeople is only a fraction of what they really cost. Don't believe me? Then answer these three questions: |
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One Hidden Gem in 10 Sales Management Challenges
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| The salespeople who fit the description of #5 might actually be on to something. They might be right. They're actually trying to make things better. They might even be wrong, but they're being constructive. The challenge with #5 is getting over yourself enough to listen! Here's what you can say: |
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How Do Companies Retain Their Under Performing Salespeople?
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| Yesterday, while reviewing the findings and answers from a Sales Force Evaluation with a client, the conversation turned to the possibility of replacing some of their reps. As we began to talk about the 5 factors, they wondered how they were able to retain these people who, for the most part, weren't very good and weren't a very good fit for the roles they were in. Three of the factors came up big in explaining why the tenure of their 9 salespeople: |
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Sales Advice in April Inc. Magazine Hits the Spot
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| I wouldn't normally recommend Inc. for your Sales Force but the April 2010 issue actually has some helpful articles.
Their Trio of stories, beginning on page 83, have some good quotes. The first story is about a nuclear power plant salesperson who sells the right way. Here's a great quote from him that your salespeople can use if they're selling something complex or very expensive...
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Call Reluctance - Causes, Factors and Predictors
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| Historically, when salespeople have failed, has most often been because of their inability to get appointments. We are able to identify the three factors that indicate a call-reluctance problem - a malady that is career-threatening for salespeople who are expected to hunt. |
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3 Sales Approaches of Elite Salespeople
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| Great salespeople must be able to easily use all three approaches on their sales calls. Salespeople that struggle tend to have just one approach and it won't work all the time. |
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Latest Sales Recruiting Breakthrough - Download the New White Paper
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| We are hearing loud and clear that companies are ready and willing to hire salespeople again BUT - they don't want to make any more mistakes. If you hire a great salesperson but you can't retain your A Player, on paper, it's just one more hiring mistake. |
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Case History - How Not to Hire Salespeople
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| A company wants to hire 5000 salespeople - but why?
2000 drop out before completing training, and another 2000 drop out during the first 90 days in the field. Another 500 drop out during the first 6 months, and at the end of the year they only have 500 of the original 5000 standing. What would it be worth to them from a cost, time, resources and practicality standpoint for us to simply identify, in advance, the final 500, before anyone is hired? |
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What Happens When Salespeople Don't Meet Expectations?
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| The game and the news are quickly forgotten and don't impact your life unless you bet on the outcome of the game or happen to be the leading story on the news. When your salespeople focus too much of their time and resources on a large opportunity and it doesn't materialize, you can lose 6-12 months of productivity from them. Not only that, your forecasts fall short, your budget goes to hell, and you could have a frustrated, demotivated salesperson on your hands. The worst part is if you have a long sales cycle, say 8-12 months, and the salesperson devoted most of his time and energy to this opportunity for 8-12 months, it will take an additional 8-12 months before the pipeline will produce new, meaningful revenue. |
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Sales Leadership - A Balancing Act Between Compliance and Quotas
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| We'll discuss the balance sales leaders must have between sharing, mandating and asking. Sounds simple. |
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What are Reasonable Sales Management Expectations?
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| I am often asked which of the various services we provide to companies can be done in-house, by the executive team. Fair question. Answer: All of them.
So why would companies use us or others with our expertise? Answer: Because when they try to do it in-house they aren't able to get most of it right: |
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A Missing Link to Sales Improvement?
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| I was walking through the Airport when I saw what could be the missing link to sales improvement... |
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Can We Really Get Salespeople to Change?
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| People change when they are ready to change. How can you short circuit that time line? |
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My Sales Force Won't Use CRM
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| I mentioned that the key rule to getting salespeople to change is rule #9, Consequences.
There are three primary ingredients to having Consequences. |
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Secrets of Effective Sales Development
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| So when your salespeople tell you they've heard it before they are totally missing the point of sales development. They've heard it but they weren't listening. |
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Baseball's General Managers versus Business' Sales Managers
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| You have one huge advantage over baseball General Managers though. Forward looking indicators. Except for observation, all of the statistics they use in baseball are lagging indicators. |
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SALES PRESENTATION ... THE BOTTOM LINE IS SELLING
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| Talk about two sides of the coin just think of the sales call. If you're in sales then it is all about the person in front of the other person/group. If you're in marketing it is all about the polished, super slick presentation. If you're the CEO and CFO it's all about the order. Surprise!!!! It takes them all. And a presentation should be tailored by the sales people so that it fits their style and the audience. And it should go where few marketing people have gone before...it should ask for the order. The best sales call is a gentle balance of the sales people and their sales tools. We just want to make it better for them. |
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Sales Coaching - Are Sales Managers Any Good at This Function?
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| I've written extensively about sales coaching before. Yesterday, a fairly typical day, I coached 4 different sales experts and 2 clients on how to more effectively coach salespeople and sales managers. I have noticed that most sales managers believe that they're fairly good at coaching when, in reality, most of them are very ineffective at it. Why? |
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The Science of Selling - Rules versus Data
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| Regular readers know that I like to talk about the science of selling. I don't mean the science of the sales process, strategy and tactics, as much as the science of research, data and proof. There is a science to selling but a more appropriate name for it would be the rules of selling. In Baseball, the rules dictate what you do, when you do it and how it should be done. In Selling, the rules accomplish the same thing. |
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Great Sales Opportunities That Don't Close
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| If getting opportunities into the pipeline is the most universal sales challenge, then getting opportunities closed comes in a close second. I'm talking about prospects who aren't ready to say, "yes" but are still "very interested". These calls pose problems for salespeople for several reasons: |
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The Top 5 Factors That Predict Sales Turnover
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| Our data shows that only 16% of the A players with experience stick for more than two years. And that brings us back to the original question.
What do you think - A's or Longevity? Should the answer be a direct relation to the length of your sales cycle? Should you go for longevity when you have a long sales cycle and for A's when you have a short sales cycle? We're interested in what you have to say!
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Top 10 Rules for Getting Your Salespeople to Follow Your Sales Process
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| Sales Management's number one priority is to assure that their salespeople don't fall into old habits, take shortcuts, get lazy, or avoid steps in the sales process where they aren't as skilled or comfortable. Once your customized, optimized, integrated sales process is in place and introduced, my top 10 rules for all things sales process, strategy and tactics are: |
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Now How Can You Motivate Your Salespeople?
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| If you can't motivate your B and C players in the most challenging times by having them set goals so that they can earn more money, then how can you motivate them? |
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How Does the Secret of Happiness Affect Sales Motivation
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| OK. So what kind of a dynamic does this create for salespeople? Salespeople must be happy in order to succeed but we also know that they must want more than what they have in order to be motivated. What is the balance between being happy and being dissatisfied? |
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Should Special Effects Determine If You Have the Right Salespeople?
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| One of the answers we usually provide when we evaluate a sales force is whether or not a company has the right salespeople. Of course we must know, right for what? |
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Kindle - Lessons Applied to the Sales Force
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| Readers who have purchased the Kindle have totally embraced that device. Some think it's the Kindle, not online sellers, that is the biggest threat to brick and mortar book stores. Read on for the lesson... |
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What Does it Mean When You Can't Reach Your Sales Team?
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| When you can't reach anyone on your sales team is that a good thing or a bad thing?
When they are all on sales calls, working the phones, or with customers/clients is that a good thing or a bad thing? |
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Mastering Sales and Sales Management
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| Do you and your salespeople have a passion for sales? What is the thing you do that is equal to repeated listening, watching or practicing? What do you do to know your material cold? Do you attend training as often as you attend concerts, theater or movies? |
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The Pros and Cons of Hiring Green Salespeople
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| Well, there had to be an article about going green at some point and since I was asked to write one for the folks at AlisterPaine.com, you can get my version of going green, along with both the pros and cons of this practice.
It's interesting that so many mainstream companies, when they get frustrated with hiring experienced salespeople, ask what would happen if they were to target inexperienced salespeople. The issue is not that hiring experienced salespeople doesn't work. The problem is that they probably aren't going about it the right way.
Read my thoughts on The Pros and Cons of Hiring Green Salespeople. |
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Why Was the Sales Forecast So Unreliable?
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| When you identify the reasons, the next step is to identify the hidden cause for those reasons. Failure to identify both the reasons and the causes are why most managers have difficulty getting things to change. And if you can't change the behaviors, you can't change the results. |
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Sales Management - Eagerness vs. Resistance
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| For one, Frank Belzer, my guest, is known for his ability to keep his pipeline filled and he discussed the things that motivate him to consistently do that. |
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Why You Should be Scared When Your Salespeople are Closing Lots of Business
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| Sales managers get caught up in the excitement of a closing frenzy when they should be taking a step back and asking themselves, what's wrong with this picture? |
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Real Live Coaching Call - Coaching Salespeople
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| Clients who receive sales management coaching, training and development come to know what an effective sales coaching conversation sounds like. You may not be privy to that so you might find last week's episode of Meet the Sales Experts helpful. |
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How Does the Salesperson Affect Price Shoppers and Negotiators?
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| When salespeople have a discussion about money, price shoppers usually make it very clear what their intentions are. On the other hand, negotiators don't usually advertise their intentions in advance. Instead, they'll negotiate after they have received a proposal. |
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6 Steps to Sales Mastery
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| Salespeople must evolve through six levels of development before they can consistently and successfully execute any process, concept, strategy or tactic they are trained and coached to perform. The six levels are: |
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Real Live Coaching Call - Coaching a Salesperson
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| Chris Mott was my guest and he coached a live caller for about 30 minutes. Listen to the show for a better sense of what every coaching conversation should sound like. The following email was received from the live caller the day after the scheduled sales call: |
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Sales and Selling - Which Has Evolved More?
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| What I found amazed me and will surely amaze you. Ready? Salespeople have not changed in any way since the recession. The statistics are identical with one exception - the percentage of salespeople who are hitting their numbers has declined significantly. However, the skill sets have not improved despite the need for them to. And the weaknesses are just as plentiful as they were, despite the need for them to be overcome. |
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How to Get Business to Drop Out of the Sky
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| I think it's both predictable, phenomenal, and fulfilling. I'm talking about the magic that occurs when you and your salespeople leave their comfort zone and work hard to perform the very work, activity, behavior and actions that, left to their own devices, would choose not to do. Whether it's a salesperson who finally: |
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18 Business Trends for Your Sales Force
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| My guests were Mark Berezow, Gary Harvey and Rocky LaGrone. Before they handled one caller's sales force challenges (excellent stuff) , they commented on the state of business out there right now.
They see:
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The Importance of Pride, Self Esteem and Confidence in Selling
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| My guest on this week's edition of Meet the Sales Experts was Bob Sinton and we talked a lot about the importance of pride, business self-esteem and two levels of confidence: |
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The Difference Between Selling to Negotiators and Selling to Price Shoppers
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| Selling successfully to both the negotiator and the price shopper takes good strategy, effective tactics, and timing - you must know when to employ them. |
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Your Salespeople Can't Even Do That?
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| Salespeople, struggling with sales 101 type issues, don't let anyone know for fear that they would be perceived as inept, which, it turns out they are. |
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Your Sales and Sales Management Questions Answered - Part 2
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| In an article last week, I provided the post to a sales competency contest. The final question in that survey asked the participants for any sales issues they needed help with. Today I'll answer the first four of those questions below: |
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Increase Your Sales: Stop Chasing Clients with a New Approach to Selling
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| Let's talk about the ways in which you can generate revenue and increase your sales. There are three ways that traditional salespeople do this. Let's explore a more effective alternative.
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2nd of the Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
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| This is the 2nd in the series of the 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions.
#1 - ACCOUNTABILITY
In its simplest form, sales accountability consists of the following:
* Holding salespeople accountable to something measurable - metrics - on a daily basis
* Being more demanding - being firmer and tougher
* Eliminating Excuse Making - people take responsibility for their results
More... |
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3rd of the Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
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| This is the third in my series of the 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions.
#3 - MOTIVATION
Motivating your salespeople comes down to getting them to:
1. Do what they won't do on their own;
2. Change their behavior;
3. Do more of what they are already doing;
4. Have more of a sense of urgency;
5. Over Achieve
More... |
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4th of the Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
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| This is the 4th in my series of the 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions.
#4 - RECRUITING
The most important things to understand about consistently recruiting strong, successful salespeople are: |
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5th of the Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
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| This is the 5th in my series of the 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions.
#5 - DEVELOPMENT
Development is the ongoing development of your salespeople. It includes - and goes beyond: |
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7th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
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| There isn't a person in the company who must work more on developing relationships than an individual in a sales management role, whether it be a line level sales manager or the World Wide VP of Sales. But developing a relationship does not mean that one should become friends. |
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12 steps field sales coach plan
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| The reality is that most sales managers do not spend enough time with their staff in a coaching capacity. Providing constant feedback and being a role model who demonstrates the right skills.
Many managers today are still focusing too heavily on short term efficiency and not long term effectiveness. Development of staff through on-the-job coaching is a critical function of modern day managers but can take second place to some of the more urgent, but less important priorities.
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Practice, Practice, Practice then Play
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| In the sporting world it is expected that athletes make the time to practice, practice, practice and then go and compete or play the game. Through regular practice they hone their skills, behaviours and attitudes to ensure they are ‘match fit’ and ready to compete at the highest standards.
A sports team needs to make sure that when they are in the thick of the game they can draw upon those skill drills and practice sessions to perform well as a team and perform well under pressure.
When an individual athlete is neck and neck with a competitor racing for the finish line they need to know how to dig deep and draw upon their experiences, skills, and mental and physical reserves to cross the finish line first. This cannot happen without lots of conscious, purposeful practice. |
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Sell More Now
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| You can sell more in this economy...really! |
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Sales Prospecting - How to get a meeting now when they suggest call back
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| Very often when sales prospecting someone might tell you that they have a project planned in 6 months and you should call back then. What would you do to get a meeting now? Because you know that if you call in 6 months the project may well be gone.... |
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The App Store Provides Insights into Your Company's Sales Challenges
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| Let's look at your company, brands, products and services. Is there any possibility that someone could go wrong buying from you? |
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Relationship Selling, So What Is A Relationship
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| Six key points to create strong bsiness relationships that drive sales and business. |
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The Magic of the Sales Force Evaluation
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| Companies that evaluate their sales forces benefit from the insights, predictions, and findings that come from the wealth of relevant information. In addition to the many surprises, including problems they weren't aware of, they learn of many opportunities too. |
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Top 25 Prerequisites for Successful Sales Training and Development
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| Before an inside or outside expert can help you develop your sales force, there are at least 25 milestones that must take place or the initiative will probably fail. Development has much less to do with content, curriculum, and methodology than it does with the person, or people who will do the developing. |
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Key Account Sales - More Than Just Important Accounts
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| Over the last several months I have engaged in several on line disagreements about the importance of asking questions early in the sales process. More than one sales expert has claimed that asking questions violates trust. More than one marketing expert has claimed that asking questions is offensive. |
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10th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| There is nothing worse than when salespeople handle objections. Not only does it cause them to rack up reverse progress, they are usually not even handling the real problem.
Here are the things you need to know about objection handling that should cause you to stop handling them forever:
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9th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| All of the stuff they have been doing, including the order in which they have been doing it, is usually wrong when we begin working with them - and permanently so. It's harder to stop doing the permanent stuff than it is to learn a more effective way. Think of an elastic band. The information from the new lesson stretches the band a lot. Then the natural tendency to do what has become permanent snaps the band back into its original shape. Solution? |
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7th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| Salespeople love to present options. It makes them feel like they have more chances to win the business. It's such a popular approach that it's one of the few parts of the sales process that is universally accepted and named. You know it as Good, Better and Best. Companies actually have alignment on Good, Better and Best, sometimes using it in their retail stores and catalogs to provide category options. How many times have salespeople presented you with 3 options? Just last week, I was presented with 3 options at the Lexus Dealer where I got my LS460. |
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6th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| SLOW DOWN TO SPEED UP
Your salespeople can't wait to do the things at which they are:
* most competent
* most comfortable
* having the most fun
* in control
* in the spot light
The problem with all of that is with what they do:
* present
* demo
* tell your story
* provide capabilities
* give references
* do proposals
* give quotes
* use company resources
and when they do it:
* as soon as they can! |
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5th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| #5 - Get a Sales GPS
These days you wouldn't think about getting into your car and driving to a new destination without typing the address into your car's navigation system. Each one of those 7 reasons for using a GPS applies to a sales cycle, so it makes sense that your sales force should have a sales GPS or a process. |
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Only Losers Cut Their Prices
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| Discounting is for losers...In order to achieve the highest potential possible a salesperson needs to believe in their pricing as much as they believe in their selling skills.
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Your software is only a tool
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| Don't let your accounting software make the decisions. It is only a tool to help you to organize the data. |
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The Five "Be's" of Customer Service
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| Get Customer Service right with these 5 simple practices. |
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Sales Scripts - 5 Cold Calling Strategies
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| If you have been in sales any time at all, one of the biggest challenges to new salespeople is the telephone. The fastest way to cover a lot of ground quickly is by telephone. How do you conquer the phone? |
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Are you interesting enough?
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| You don't demonstrate that you are genuinely interested in others by being totally self-focused. The mistake many businesses make is -everything they do and say is all about me, me, and me! |
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Has cold-calling ever worked for you?
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| Many salespeople make the mistake of treating in-bound calls as easy wins or a guaranteed sale. However, my experience suggests you need to engage customers in the same way, don't skip steps in y0ur sales-process, and never assume they have buy-in just because they called you, as they may also have called three of your competitors.
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The 4th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| For more than 40 years, sales authors, experts and trainers have been telling their readers, subscribers and clients about the importance of talking 30% of the time and listening 70% of the time. That ratio is not etched in stone. Even 50/50 is acceptable. The stage of the sales process dictates the ratio more than the ratio itself. For instance... |
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4th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| For more than 40 years, sales authors, experts and trainers have been telling their readers, subscribers and clients about the importance of talking 30% of the time and listening 70% of the time. That ratio is not etched in stone. Even 50/50 is acceptable. The stage of the sales process dictates the ratio more than the ratio itself. For instance, if your salespeople are following the Baseline Selling process, they would talk 100% in the earliest phase of Getting to 1st Base, and probably 10% in the later phase of Getting to 1st Base. They would probably talk 10% of the time while Getting to 2nd Base. They might talk 50% of the time on the way to 3rd Base and 90% of the time when Running Home. |
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3rd of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| In this post I present the real #2, The Enemy is Resistance. I've written about this before too.
The gist of Resistance is this: Selling would be far more simply for many more of your salespeople if they would focus on recognizing the resistance rather than attempting to overcome the many forms it takes: |
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2nd of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| What exactly is a case of Happy Ears? A salesperson has Happy Ears when she hears what she wants to hear. Example: Your salesperson asks her prospect about the budget and the prospect says, "we'll try to find the money". Your salesperson hears, "We have the money, and we will spend the money, and there isn't a limit." |
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Celebrities and the Sales Force
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| Here I introduce the 7th in a series of articles, The Celebrity Series, 11 articles about famous people and the analogies to the sales force. |
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1st of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| #1 - IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!
Believe it or not, there are a lot of people in sales who mistakenly believe that the world revolves around them. If my previous sentence said "show business" instead of "sales" it would make sense but this isn't show business. |
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10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That are Key to Building a Sales Culture
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| These aren't the 10 sales competencies you read about and listen to all the time. No way! These 10 are hardly ever discussed, seldom, if ever written about, and the most difficult to learn. Ready? |
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Do You Need Your Salespeople to Love and Respect You?
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| The sales manager I coached had some very human needs. When he connected with his salespeople, they shared details of their lives, plans for their weekends and he felt loved. When salespeople praised his coaching or said that his advice helped them on a sales call, he felt respected. And when he assured the higher-ups that good things were happening, he truely believed that business was on the way. |
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A Forgotten Secret of Sales Success
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| Brad learned early in his career that left to his own devices, he would find ways to avoid picking up the phone and making calls. Like so many salespeople, he suffered from call reluctance, fear of rejection, fear of failure, and more. Over time, he learned to trick himself, play games and, most importantly use purpose, motivation and fear to assure that he was consistently filling his pipeline. Listen to the show to hear more about this compelling topic. |
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What Does Your Customer Really Value?
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| As a salesperson once you learn what the customer’s value expectations are, you will do more than just close the sale...
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Why Buyers Love to Delay Buying
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| Understanding why the buyer does need to buy from you and how what you’re selling will allow them to achieve their needs and objectives… will strengthen your own resolve and confidence… to wholeheartedly believe in your product, your price and your potential to help the customer achieve their goals.
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How to be interesting
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| When you get the opportunity to speak with and meet a new customer, don't make the conversation all about you, make it about them. What makes you more interesting in business than your competitors is your capacity and willingness to be genuinely interested in customers. Furthermore, this interest should always transcend into a valuable relationship that benefits them in a unique or compelling way. |
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"Our salespeople aren't asking for the business!"
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| Some may find the concept of salespeople not asking for the business, strange even ridiculous given 'the close' has traditionally been a salesperson's end-game. This is analogous to a football player running down the sideline, struggling to avoid the clutches of would-be tacklers - to just sit down on their bum and scratch their head an inch before the goal line. It's just doesn't make sense, yet in sales, this type of conducts is surprisingly common. |
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Help! My sales team isn’t coping with the fallout from the GFC
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| Many sales people, for the first time, are experiencing tough times when it comes to selling and many are not sure how to handle themselves in these difficult situations.
The current climate is, indeed, a test of character.
Many sales people, especially those in their 20's and 30's have not likely experienced selling in tough markets before. For the past 12 years prior to 2008, at least, the business climate in our market place has been, for the most part, buoyant. As we all know it's very easy to sell when times are good.
It now begs the question: How well have we prepared ourselves practically, emotionally, and physically to manage our way through these tough times? |
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Engineer Yourself a Better 2011
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| For whatever reason, I have spent a lot of my time, particularly within the last three years, working with a lot of companies who have sales engineers - meaning that they hire people with engineering backgrounds to be salespeople. When I tell people about this fact, they give expressions of horror or sympathy, because of what they perceive as the difficulty of training engineers to be salespeople. What's funny is, I love working with engineers. Want to know why? |
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Happy Ears or an Empty Pipeline?
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| Very often, when an opportunity dies, salespeople will ask their managers or me for help.
After debriefing, when it's clear that the opportunity is hopeless, and the salesperson continues to ask for help, still wants to schedule another meeting, and still wants to reach out and get it moving again, there are usually three factors at play. The salesperson either... |
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Quote 85% Less - Close 300% More
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| He had a client who, when he met them, closed 4 deals for every 100 quotes they prepared and submitted. Not only that, it took their highly paid engineers anywhere from 1 hour to 1 week to complete those quotes. |
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5 Steps to Coaching Your Salespeople Beyond Happy Ears
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| Following are my thoughts about how you, the leader of your salespeople, can help them overcome Happy Ears. Slip into these five roles to help them be more realistic about and more comprehensive with their opportunities. |
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Putting for an Eagle - Closing the Unlikely Sale
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| Veteran salespeople are capable of pulling off the same heroics, but only when they execute the sales process perfectly. Today, one veteran salesperson told me about all of the short cuts he took to reach his lofty goal. |
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Sales Management Training: 8 Competencies of Top Sales Professionals
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| Do you know what separates the top 1% of all sales professionals from everybody else? It's a set of 16 core competencies discovered through years of research, which lead to their extreme level of success. This article will help you understand 8 of these skills so that you can enjoy your own sales success. The next article in this series will discuss the other 8.
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C-Level Selling: Are You a Tiger, a Phil or Struggle to Make the Cut
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| C-Level Selling and professional golf have a lot in common, but there is no money for second or low place. |
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"Closing the Sale"
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| "The great ones in selling, today, are more concerned about you, the buyer, then they are in themselves and "making the sale". |
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Sales Tip: How To Research Your Market to be A Sales Expert
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| This fantastic free tool will give you the tools to be seen as the goto sales expert in your Industry. Read the afrticle to find out more... |
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Why Sales Managers Need to Make Regular Deposits in "The Trust Account"
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| In your bank account, you have an ATM card that only you have the PIN number to access the account funds. Every week, you make regular deposits and withdrawals into your account. Base salary deposits go in regularly through automatic deposit, while bonuses and commission checks go in periodically with expense checks and other deposits. You make cash withdrawals, debit card purchases, write checks, and make other payments.
Unless you enjoy bouncing checks and incurring overdraft fees, you're careful to monitor your balances so you don't bounce checks and rack up those nasty overdraft fees. Even though you may have overdraft protection, you certainly don't want to pay 16.75% interest, so you're careful to make sure your deposits outweigh your withdrawals.
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Why a Sales Manager MUST Evoke "The Law of Reciprocity"
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| For our purposes, the Law of Reciprocity states: If you do something nice for someone, human nature dictates that the recipient will feel compelled to do something nice for you in return.
It is in essence: "you reap what you sow". This is an irrefutable law and one that you should teach your salespeople. The question of will someone actually act upon it at a given time depends on who asks.
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How a Top Sales Manager Gets Their Salespeople to Sell More Stuff!
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| When do you do your best work? When you feel bad or when you feel good?
The obvious answer is when you feel good. No one feels like doing much of anything when they feel bad. When people don't feel so good, they end up doing very little....not a good situation for you.
So it begs the question: does the salesperson brimming with confidence sell more than the salesperson who lacks confidence? The answer may seem obvious, but why do so few average sales managers spend the majority of their time building their people's confidence up instead of ripping it down?
It could be that many sales managers are former sales salespeople themselves and "seagull sales management" (swoop in, dump on the rep, then fly away), is all they know. In this case, unfortunately, ignorance begets more ignorance...
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Why a Top Sales Manager Must Always "Tune Into the Right Frequency"
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| It's definitely clichéd, but I think this is one of the most critical elements to successful sales management and that is to make sure you are tuned into the right radio frequency with your salespeople.
There's only one radio station that your sales executives like to listen to and that radio station is: WIFM. (You might say WIIFM, but let's not get too technical here...).
This is the "What's-In-It-For-Me" radio frequency. This is the only station they pay any attention to and if you're not broadcasting on it all the time, 24-7, then your sales reps are gonna switch you over to some other station on XM or Sirius radio...or worse yet, turn off the radio completely!
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RADAR: A DEEPER LOOK
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| Salespeople are faced with many challenges - getting in the door, overcoming objections and the prospects fear of economic uncertainty. But even more frustrating is being rejected after you offer the perfect solution to the prospect’s needs and problems. That difficulty is caused by the #1 sales error of both rookies and seasoned pros. |
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Up-selling Sales Tips
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| Here's are some up-selling sales tips you can use to increase your sales and your income.
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The Shadow Syndrome
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| Is a sales manager an essential component of a successful sales / marketing strategy? |
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My Pipeline is full, but the deals aren't closing!
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| Salespeople that spend large chunks of valuable time and energy attending multiple pre-sales meetings, conducting 'needless' needs analysis and writing proposals at the customer's request, are more often than not left scratching their heads in a state of ambiguity and confusion. |
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What we Think About Sales Motivation is All Wrong
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| The bottom line - for your salespeople - is that everyone is different; everyone is motivated by different things and for those who are clearly motivated by money, and where you have a clear goal and focus for them, their compensation should and must be commission based. When you have people who are motivated more by recognition, awards, competition, time-off, public service, or philanthropy, your compensation program should be flexible enough to compensate them in an appropriate manner too. |
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Are The Majority Of B2B Salespeople Allergic to Paperwork Even Though It Means They Are Missing Out On A Competitive Advantage?
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| If you are a salesperson looking to differentiate your approach, a meeting agenda prepared in advance and sent by e-mail will help you do just that. Since most of your competitors are likely allergic to such paperwork, you'll have a distinct competitive advantage. Curious? See what the decision-makers have to say. |
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Personal Branding For Salespeople
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| Are you a salesperson looking for ways to generate more referrals? Do you agree that the best way to do that is to operate in a predictable and professional manner? Then read on to learn some tips to maximize the power of your personal brand and get recommended by prospects and clients. |
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Sales Tips for Commercial Salespeople and Sales Managers – How to Influence Prospects and Earn Sales by asking Effective Questions
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| One of the top ways you can influence potential customers to buy from you is to master the art of developing and asking effective questions. Your questions should uncover relevant business issues and help the prospect determine if there are any costly problems worth solving. |
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Sales Tips for Commercial Salespeople and Sales Managers - How to Influence Prospects and Earn Sales by Demonstrating Your Expertise
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| One of the top ways you can influence potential customers to buy from you is to master the art of developing and asking effective questions. Your questions should uncover relevant business issues and help the prospect determine if there are any costly problems worth solving. |
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Sales Tips for Commercial Salespeople and Sales Managers - How to Win Sales by Being Positively Predictable
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| This article is about creating a positive predictable experience for your prospects and customers. The salespeople who create a positively predictable experience for decision-makers earn both sales and referrals by taking the risk out of the buy-sell equation. Here's how. |
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C-Level Selling - A Sales Person's Best Resource
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| Sales managers and sales people are sympathetic to other salespeople. Learn how they will help you get to the C-Level and make your sale to their companies.
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You Have an 82% Chance of Making a Hiring Mistake When...
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| My guest on this week's episode of Meet the Sales Experts was Ken Edmundson. We were talking about hiring when he he said that there is an 82% chance of making a hiring mistake when management does not know how their candidate is wired. He said it's a mistake when they are fired, they quit, or they under achieve. He went on to say that you can't hire without an interview and a background check and you can't hire by only doing those two things. He named 4 things that cause these mistakes: |
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Latest Fiction for the Sales Force - No More Hunters/Farmers
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| In 2007 we had to deal with writers proclaiming that sales and the sales force were dead. The reality of all of that talk was that the people writing about it weren't close enough to sales to know what they were talking about. Companies with transactional sales don't need salespeople selling their transactional items, but they do need salespeople persuading companies to choose them in the first place. Then the transactions can be placed via Internet or an inside sales group. That's about the only scenario where the "dead" proclamation even comes close to being accurate. |
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Training Will Increase Sales
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| Sales just happen without special skills or techniques and anyone can do it. Right? A person shows up at a prospective customer, presents the product or service, and walks away with an order. The attitude - no need to spend valuable resources, time, and money, to formulate sales goals, programs, and training when it is so easy to do is still pervasive in the minds and cultures of many business executives. Especially those that began in the "good ole days" when competition was scarce and people formed relationships that endured for years.
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Why A Top Sales Manager Needs To Be On All His Reps’ “Pre-sets”
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| You have to be more popular than Howard Stern.
You also have to be cooler than Opie and Anthony too.
Why? Because one of the most critical elements to successful sales management is to always make sure you are tuned into the radio frequency of your salespeople.
Here's why. There's only one radio station that your sales executives like to listen to and that radio station is: WIFM. (You might say WIIFM, but let's not get too technical here...).
This is the "What's-In-It-For-Me" radio frequency. This is the only station they pay any attention to and if you're not broadcasting on it all the time, 24-7, then your sales reps are gonna switch you over to some other station on XM or Sirius radio...or worse yet, turn off the radio completely!
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Are your sales people living in false hope?
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| Salespeople that spend large chunks of valuable time and energy attending multiple pre-sales meetings, conducting 'needless' needs analysis's and writing proposals at the customer's request, are more often than not left scratching their heads in a state of ambiguity and confusion.
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Referrals: The Path to Increased Sales
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| The main reason most salespeople do not get the number of referrals necessary to properly elevate their sales is simple. They don’t ask for them. Swept up in the euphoric high that salespeople experience when making a sale, they forget or do not feel it is important to pursue referrals. |
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Are You A Profit Center or a Profit Drain?
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| Invariably, salespeople are either profit generators or profit drains. For some reason, “break even” salespeople have been very rare in my career. There’s a deeper level for us salespeople, though. The two questions we must ask ourselves are: Is our employer better off for having us represent them? And… Are our customers better off for doing business with us? |
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The Most Valuable Commodity You Can Market
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| From time to time, I enjoy engaging practiced salespeople and sales managers in conversation about selling on a deeper level. One such conversation that happened this week centered around the question, “what is the most valuable quality salespeople can bring to the table?” Answers ranged from “product knowledge” to “likeability” to “good communication,” and on into “expert questioning” before one of the salespeople hit the correct answer – the answer that trumps all of the above.
That answer is trustworthiness. |
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Qualify the Sale - Three Ways to Win
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| One of the many challenges salespeople face is getting to the finish line, only to find out they have not won anything. This can be a source of aggravation or a wake-up call that they are doing something wrong. Recently I was training a group of insurance professionals and they recounted numerous stories of how they gave a wonderful presentation, only to discover that the potential client could not buy their products or services. |
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Sales Peoples' Biggest Weakness – C-Level Selling
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| If you want overachieving salespeople they must know how to and be comfortable C-Level Selling. Most sales people deliver mediocre results because they lack this skill set. Learn how to put this missing major element into your salespeople.
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Prospecting For New Business - Cold Calling
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| Many people think business generation is about picking up the phone. Effective business generation begins with an effective prospecting plan. This article shows you where to start |
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What Seagulls Can Teach You About Top Sales Leadership
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| Ever work for a " Seagull Sales Manager"?
You probably have.
A "Seagull Sales Manager" is a sales manager who seldom interacts with his people but occasionally swoops down, dumps on everybody, and then quickly flies away.
If you haven't guessed already, this is not exactly the kind of leadership we advocate at Sales Management Mastery...
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Sales Management Training Tips: Sales Coaching vs. Admin?
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| After my last blog 5 Ways to Gauge Your Sales Managers’ Coaching, I heard from several clients. One VP of Sales loved the article and asked for copies for his Directors of Sales. Two heads of sales from different companies liked the post but did not want to send it out to their frontline sales managers because of my comment (see below) that coaching was more important than administration. Neither wants their sales managers to feel that it is OK to spend time in the field and avoid administration.
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Dicing, Shoveling and Training Salespeople
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| When you're showing a newly hired salesperson the ropes it's a lot like showing a child how to learn a new skill. But no matter how long they've been doing it you don't want to assume that they know the proper method. Teach them, let them fail and then learn from their mistakes. |
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Overcoming the Dysfunction in Sales Organizations
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| These days, many companies have questions about compensation for salespeople and sales leaders and as a result they make a lot of mistakes too. Why would a company want to squash a top producer because he/she is making a lot of money? It happened to Rocky once and he weighed in - with a strong opinion - on the subject. |
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Book Review: Influence: Science and Practice
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| Robert Cialdini’s book is all about “click, whirr†– how we’re programmed as humans, how marketing can leverage the programming, and how as individuals we can overcome the programming. |
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C-Level Selling Tip 3: Sales Rejection, What You Didn’t Learn in College
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| Sales people have 3 role, marketing, selling and relationship development. Most only market because they really don’t know the difference. Then they get rejected. Learn all the skills from this C-Level Selling Tip 3 - Sales Rejection. |
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Sales Management Training Tips: Pursuing Sales Results vs. Developing Your Team
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| I recently had lunch with a highly successful VP of Sales of a Pharmaceutical company. He explained that he was frustrated with the members of his sales management team, who he felt were focused only on results. He worried that they were not spending any time developing their salespeople.
At first blush, most of you might easily say you don’t see a problem with that. You wish your sales managers were more focused on delivering the sales numbers. That’s easily understood and probably true in many cases.
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Salespeople misperceive their proper roles by being misled by leads
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| By being the "Star of the Show' you are in peril of overplaying your part.
By being the Stage Manager you can control the development of the plot. |
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Position Yourself as a Leader
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| To be a top-performing sales professional, you must be a great leader... |
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Why Customer Service Destroys Salespeople
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| Customer service alone is not going to help a company achieve its growth targets. It is essential for salespeople to be focused on selling as their first priority...
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The C Factor!
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| Assembling a 'dream team' sales force is not as difficult as you may first think. I've known of businesses reaching great heights through the salesmanship of only a few sales-guns!
Before creating a 'dream team' you need to have at least one exceptional salesperson you can model. Someone has to go there first! Whether this person is the company founder, (if sales savvy,) or a senior leader, there must be a working best-practice sales-process you can model and replicate.
Once you have a high performing salesperson to model; their core characteristics, behaviours, and activities, then form the blueprint (DNA) of your 'dream team'. Keeping in-mind, that it's ok to have varying personalities in the same team, this enables your team to demonstrate versatility and engage a diverse customer base. You don't need to 'literally' clone sales |
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