You should be asking for help whether or not you are making your sales goals. You will make selling a lot easier when you get help. Here’s what to ask for. Ask for selling tools. All too often I see salespeople who are tasked with figuring out how to sell. This is unfair to the salesperson and unrealistic for sales success. Your company’s management should develop your sales … [Read more...]
Archives for May 2015
What makes a great salesperson? A great sales manager.
Behind many great sales professionals are great sales managers. A sales manager is someone who can make selling much easier---or a whole lot harder. Management defines the process. Too often management expects salespeople to do the impossible. They hire salespeople and say, "Go sell." You wouldn’t expect someone on the assembly line to figure out how to assemble a product. Why … [Read more...]
Always be closing? No way.
Digital Equipment Corp. founder Ken Olsen said in 1977, "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." That might have been true back in 1977 for a variety of reasons, but certainly doesn’t hold true today. There are some sales principles that need to be retired because they are no longer true for selling today. “Always be closing.” I just heard a … [Read more...]
Metaphors to sell more
You must have heard the saying, "A picture is worth 1,000 words." Well some words are worth 1,000 pictures. I often say that the tools of a salesman's trade are words. Metaphors are word pictures and they are powerful words. They make it easier for the listener to listen because they involve more senses than just hearing. They do this by creating word pictures. When someone … [Read more...]
Sell More When You Build Trust and Rapport
People do business with people they like. So how can you get customers and prospects to like you? Think of selling as an art and a science. The science of selling can help you understand your customers and how they select their preferred suppliers. Their preferences start with rapport. What is rapport? Rapport is the feeling you get when you have an environment of trust and … [Read more...]