Are you getting tired of new ways to create meals with turkey? Hopefully, Thanksgiving gave you a few days of relaxation and not too much stress. Now it's back to selling and the few days left this year. It’s December. Now what can you do for selling? Look back. Schedule a very important appointment. It's not with a customer. The appointment is with you. At this … [Read more...]
Reasons Customers Buy & Become a Sales Visionary: February 2014
Monthly Newsletter with New Ideas to Sell More Now February-2014 The Selling Quote for the Month “A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.” -Thomas Carlyle, historian and essayist (1795-1881) For Salespeople... Listen carefully to your customers’ answers to your questions. Some are too afraid to tell you that they … [Read more...]
Value Selling Beats Price Every Day
If you sell on price you will lose business on price. Selling price is a bad way to sell. Instead, you should be selling on value. But, how do you do that? Here are the words to use when you sell based on value. And remember, one of the mistakes too many salespeople make is when they quote price early in their sales process. If that's you, you'll find that you're not very … [Read more...]
So what are you thankful for?
I'm getting ready to celebrate National Salesperson's Day on December 6. (You will be, too. Right?) More on that in December. Meanwhile, which of your customers are you saying thanks to? I'll bet that when you say thank you to a client you get back even more. I see too little appreciation being given in business. Maybe it's because some people don't know how to say thank … [Read more...]
Can Jack Welch help you sell?
Did you see the column in the Wall Street Journal that Jack Welch wrote to defend his famous GE forced ranking program? It’s also known as rank and yank. Welch makes a compelling argument for rank and yank. When executed successfully, employees know well in advance of a review how they are perceived in the organization. Welch consistently asks his audiences, “How many of … [Read more...]
Is Your Competition Beating You in Selling?
Don’t compare yourself to others. Have you ever heard that advice? Well, it’s wrong. In sales you do want to compare yourself to others. That is if you want to get better. So look around at the best salespeople. What are they doing better than you are? I recently met with a successful insurance professional. He said he noticed that the best in his industry were speaking to … [Read more...]
Why You Should Bring Bagels to a Sales Call
Did you know that a hungry, tired judge is much less likely to grant a defendant's request than one who has just eaten or taken a break? At least that's the finding of an ingenious new study looking at the rulings made by parole board judges in relation to when they had taken a meal break. Overall, prisoners saw a 65 percent success rate if their cases were heard early in the … [Read more...]
What’s your pricing strategy when you sell?
It's always important to consider your pricing strategy when you sell. Recent research shows that in negotiations, higher first offers from sellers drive up sale prices—reversely, buyers benefit from lower first offers. You can increase that advantage by stating your offer as a precise, rather than a round number. Here's what they found. In an experiment involving customers … [Read more...]
Sales is common sense, but common sense sometimes isn’t common.
What would you think about standing too close to a customer to make him uncomfortable? You would never do that, right? It's just common sense that you don't make a customer uncomfortable if you have any hope of him buying again. Well, sometimes salespeople don't realize that what they're doing is wrong. Just imagine you worked with a salesman for several months. You arrive … [Read more...]
Want to be more persuasive?
One of the basic principles of persuasion and influence is that we tend to comply with people we like. Why? We trust people we like. You need trust to influence others. How does this apply to you? The next time you meet someone new at a business function, a Chamber of Commerce meeting, or other business function, do something that gets you to be liked. What would that be? Stop … [Read more...]