THE MONTHLY SELLING NEWSLETTER WITH IDEAS TO SELL MORE NOW
July 2014
The Selling Quote of the Month
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
––William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (1865-1939)
For Salespeople…
How do you know you will fail at selling? You listen to Yeats. Sales, just like education, is all about igniting passion. Think about your product or service that you sell. Do you love it? I sold industrial lubricants. I loved working on my car and was fascinated by hydraulics, gears, bearings and lubrication.
Loving your product is the first requirement to sell successfully. If you don’t like what you sell, you will find it very difficult and maybe impossible to deal with the inevitable rejection and disappointment that is a part of selling.
What do you do if you don’t like what you sell? Maybe you need to reexamine why you’re doing what you’re doing. Or, perhaps you’re not seeing all the wonderful things your products and services do for your customers. You get to take credit for those positives because you sold the products and services that produced those results.
If you can’t see the positives, you might want to think about another career. It’s tough to hear, but it’s necessary. I hope you do love your products. This should confirm you’re doing what you should be doing. That’s being a successful salesman!
Blogs and Other Columns
Learn more sales strategies from my column as a sales expert for Allbusiness.com.
Other Columns:
The Real Deal, a column on women in business for Allbusiness.com Hope you’ll read more ideas so you can achieve your success in business.
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Sales Ideas for this Month
The high of getting your new business sale is long passed. Now it’s time to focus on delivering for your customer. Why not start with the answers to these questions?
What value do I deliver? It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when your competition is going to start trying to take your business away from you. What do you have in place to resist competition? The best prevention is when your customer wants to buy from you and not from your competitor. How do you make that happen? You clearly demonstrate the value you bring to your customer.
You should focus on delivering value to your customer after the sale. How can you help your customer avoid a cost, reduce a cost or help him make more money? Now document it. If you can show results, your customers will be less likely to want to change suppliers. They will be more resistant to a lower priced competitor because what you delivered is real. Competition can say anything about what they can do to get the business. Talk is cheap. You’ve actually delivered. In this case actions speak louder than words. Can your actions and results speak for you? If not, now would be a good time to formulate your plan to show your customer what you and your products are worth.
What inspires you? Staying motivated is a big part of selling. Keeping customers, which is a big part of the sales process, is work. Trying to address and resolve billing errors, lost orders, and order shortages is frustrating and energy depleting. When you nourish your spirit you will be able to keep moving forward and serve your customers. What inspires you to sell? It may be reading visionary business authors like Jim Collins so you can move from good to great. Maybe you enjoy reading a good sales book like Real-World Selling to implement new ideas. Nourishing your spirit after the sale is what is going to keep you laser focused on your customers and serving them.
You may have focused all your selling efforts to get the sale. Now that you’ve got the business, these are the questions you need to answer to keep your business. Here’s one more. Are you ready to work to keep your sale?
Best wishes for your selling success!
Action Items
1. Look at your business. How have you saved a recent customer money?
2. Calculate the value of what you delivered.
Did You Know?
Here’s a tip this week for your sales success.
So I never assume, here’s a brief list of services I offer.
A. Consulting/Coaching/Mentoring
By hour or by project.
- Plan sales call strategies
- Develop effective proposals that prevent “low price” shoppers from picking your competiton
- Reduce the stress of working for a difficult manager
- Shorten the time for a new hire to be productive
- Design customized selling tablet app
- New ideas to sell more
- Develop questioning strategy to shorten your sales cycle and increase sales
- 90 Day Performance Plan for new sales hires to be productive faster and increase retentionFor info, please see Consulting/Coaching.Call 972 380 0200 for a free initial consultation.
B. Speaking at Sales Meetings to Improve Sales Performance
Present Sales Performance improvement programs at sales meetings and conferences
RECOMMENDED IF:
- Your salespeople lose proposals based on price.
- You have underperforming salespeople.
- Your salespeople have too many deals that they say are closing and they don’t close.
Upcoming Programs
Visit Best@Selling to see upcoming programs.
Consultative Selling: Asking the Strategic Questions that Sell: Did a customer tell you he needs to think about your sales proposal? Your questioning strategy is flawed. You will learn to ask the questions that sell for you and not hear “I’ll think about it” any more. This webinar is key to your sales call success.
Sell More Now Programs: Selling Strategies to Sell More Now!Your successful selling is more than talking and listening. It’s developing the strategy to get in front of the right customers the easiest and most effective ways. This thoughtful, strategic approach to your selling will shorten your sales cycle and increase the profitability of your business. You will learn to develop your successful selling strategies in this one-hour (approximate) program.
You will learn to make strategic decisions that help your customers make a buying decision and see you as the preferred supplier. Your strategy work continues as you demonstrate why they should continue to buy from you. This program will guide you to formulate your sales strategies so you get in front of the right customers, help them make buying decisions faster, and create long-term business relationships.
You will learn:
1. How to get customers to quickly understand that you are the preferred supplier.
2. How to identify the customers you can best serve.
3. How to get customers to come to you.
4. How to avoid wasting time on the wrong prospects.
5. How to be perceived as an expert so customers quickly trust you.
Sell More Now with Mentoray Marketplace
You Can Still Learn!
Did you miss the webinars to help you sell more. View them now!
| On-Line Webinar: Would Have Liked to Know That!: A Salesman’s Guide To Sales Success If you’re new to sales or thinking about a career in sales, you will want to avoid the setbacks and obstacles that might be part of your career. Selling is a fulfilling yet challenging job. You can learn to maintain the selling attitude you need to thrive. You will learn to focus on the skill that’s most important to sales success (and it’s probably not the one you think.) You will identify the strategies to implement that will lead to your sales success. |
On-Line Webinar: Secrets of Persuasion to Sell More Now
Sales professionals who use persuasion and influence get better results in business. This seminar will teach you to identify the behavioral clues you need to effectively
persuade others. You will learn what the clues mean and how to use them with customers to shorten your sales cycle. You will increase your sales when you have the tools to persuade.
Do you need to increase your sales? Why not consider sales coaching? Are you looking for proven strategies to sell more?
Contact Maura@Bestatselling.com or 972 380 0200. Free 15 minute consultation to determine if this program is for you.
“You have also taught me a great questioning strategy for every account. I can now get past price and get deeper into a business than before. This has not only given me more confidence when I walk into a prospect, but it has shortened my sales cycle. This has been my biggest goal throughout our working together.”
Jordan Dale
Account Manager
Western Marketing, Inc
“Maura has proivided the expertise to retool our entire sales process. She has single handedly created the sales side of the cutting edge technological sales tools we are implementing at this moment. She has been invaluable.”
Charles Read
President
Custom Payroll Associates Inc.
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You can read my monthly selling column Ask The Sales Pro for SOLD magazine where I answer readers selling questions. You can subscribe to the magazine and read my answers to solve their selling challenges. You can also ask questions! Get answers to your tough selling challenges.