The Selling Newsletter for Sales Professionals
“It is better to feed one cat than many mice."
–Norwegian Proverb
For Salespeople…
Creating lazy salespeople is my focus this year. Lazy means doing the least to get the most. As this proverb describes, you can save yourself a lot of energy if the cat does the work for you. That kind of approach is what you want in sales. Instead of you doing all the work, is there a process fix you can make to streamline your work?
Do you need to be doing all you do to accomplish your selling?What can you stop doing and still sell? Often I find people so busy that they don’t take the time to examine their sales process. Instead of taking less time to be thoughtful, they waste a lot more time. Now is the time to find that cat and let him work on the mice in your selling.
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THE BLOG S AND OTHER COLUMNS
I’m now writing 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.
You can get RSS feed for the blog.
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THE SELLING IDEAS FOR THE MONTH TO SELL MORE NOW
Great Ideas for Selling
“Great idea.”Have you found yourself saying that after you hear a really good idea? Great selling ideas will help you shorten your sales cycle and sell more. Here are some smart selling ideas that I’ve heard and use.
Find a partner. Find out who sells to your customers and doesn’t compete with you. Then partner up with that salesperson to exchange leads. For example, if you’re selling consumer air conditioning contracting, you are selling to homeowners. Remodelers also sell to homeowners. What makes you good partners is that many remodelers are unaware of air conditioning requirements in new spaces. They install a unit that is under capacity. As a result, the homeowner is dissatisfied with the remodel. When you partner, the remodeler gets the right air conditioning specs for the job, the customer is satisfied and the air conditioning contractor makes a sale. That’s win-win-win. Who can you partner with who can bring you leads and result in your making a sale?
Keep your boss in the loop. There’s nothing worse in business than an unexpected circumstance that turns all your plans upside down. Now think about your selling. You don’t like unexpected problems either. When you work with your customers you expect an open dialogue where they tell you when they have issues so you have an opportunity to fix them. You can even handle the unexpected issue, provided you know about it.
Now think about your boss. Unless you have final say on all key issues in your business, your boss is going to be an integral part of your sales strategy. He will sign off on pricing. He can approve exceptions to company policy. You will get more responsiveness from your boss when your boss trusts your judgment. How do you make that happen? You keep your boss informed about issues you’re facing and how you’re addressing them. That builds trust. The worse thing you can do is keep issues hidden from your boss. If you do, when you need a quick response or support for an idea, your boss will be less likely to deliver. A sales emergency is not the time when you want to be on your own.
Think before you do.I know you’re busy. Everyone is today. If you want to see the difference in sales success, just look at activity versus results. I see a lot of active people, but they’re just not producing results. They rush through tasks thinking they will accomplish more. They won’t. Here’s how you can get better results.
Before you start a task, first think about it. Take a few minutes to consider what you’re trying to accomplish and who should be involved. Then complete the task. After you’re done, do a debrief. What did you learn? Would there be anything you do differently in the future? Thinking is all too often undervalued in selling. I think the most successful salespeople are the ones who think about their selling, evaluate it and draw conclusions. Do you take the time to think about your selling and the tasks you need to accomplish? If you don’t, now would be a good time to start.
You often have to try new ideas if you’re looking to improve your selling. Why not try these ideas and then look at your sales results? I’ll bet you’ll improve your sales. That would be a great idea.
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ACTION ITEMS
1. Who sells to your customers and doesn’t compete with you?
2. Invite that person to meet for coffee and suggest you share leads.
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DID YOU KNOW?
Here’s a tip this week for your sales success.
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Programs
You can check for current programs.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Here are some selling tools to help you sell more now. Click on the photo to find out more!
Monday Morning Sales Tips : A book that has quick ideas for you to be more successful in sales. Real-World Selling: A book with selling skills and strategies that work in the real world of sales. Secrets of Persuasion: Audio CD for the clues to use to speed-read people and close more business.