What’s your worst sales nightmare? Is it thinking you are ready to close the sale only to find out you don’t have the deal yet? It’s not over till it’s over and you may have more work to do. Here’s where you can start. Move it forward. There are prospects who tell you they want to buy and it just doesn’t happen. Maybe your prospect really isn’t convinced there’s a reason to … [Read more...]
Shorten your sales cycle. Stop kidding yourself.
What's one way to sell more now? It's to sell more to prospects most likely to buy now. Duh. But, why is it when I ask a sales professional, "Who is your ideal prospect?" I hear answers that are very different than the prospects these sales professionals are calling on? Stop kidding yourself. Think about your best customers. Who are they? Be very specific and identify them … [Read more...]
When does your sales process start?
When a customer tells you that a referral will contact you, does the referral call you? If not, you may be forgetting that your sales process starts by getting the referrals to contact you. Start the sales process by learning why the customer thinks the referral fits your business. You can reply, "Great. I'm looking forward to talking to him. So I'm prepared, tell me why … [Read more...]
Are you getting off to a good start this year?
I just learned something very surprising from a management consultant. In many fast growing companies there isn’t a current job description. Do you have one? Now would be a good time to read it. I would create one for your manager if you didn't have one. If you don’t know what you’re supposed to do, how do you know what results you’re expected to produce? Do you know what … [Read more...]
Here’s a real new year’s resolution
Forget your resolution to lose 5 pounds. The good news is that fat people don't have a greater incidence of dying than thin people. (Today's Wall Street Journal) Instead of passing on the cookies, why not resolve to collaborate more this year? All the greats you read about from Steve Jobs to Bill Gates had a collaborator who helped them become successful. Jobs had Steve … [Read more...]
Customer Preferences you can use to your advantage
I just read in the Harvard Business Review daily stat that when simultaneously using multiple items, consumers prefer products of the same brand, a phenomenon that overwhelms their preexisting brand preferences. Here's what they report: Research participants who were consuming a nonfavored brand (of chips, say) chose the same brand of a complementary product (salsa, for … [Read more...]
Expand the possibility of your sales
Sell the sizzle not the steak. Learn to state how your products and services impact your customers instead of saying what you do. You'll create interest and curiosity to hear more of your message. You start by knowing what benefits you bring to your customers. If you sell oil you help your customers reduce downtime. If you sell sales training the benefit you bring is … [Read more...]
The 80/20 rule for predicting sales success
You can tell the quality of the sales call by who is doing the talking. If your customer is doing 80% of the talking and you’re talking 20% give yourself some points. You want customers to feel comfortable with you. You need the information that only they have. You also need to hear if and how your customers understand your message. You can only learn this if they talk … [Read more...]
Could you create copycat buyers?
Copycats are a good thing. Social copying is the phenomenon of looking to other people to show us what to do. That's what a TV track taps into. It shows us where to laugh and we feel better knowing that we’re part of the group. We also eat at crowded restaurants because it allows us to copy the other people who have chosen what we believe to be a good restaurant. Think of … [Read more...]