Basics of Negotiation for Beginners

People learn and practice the art of negotiation from the time they are young children. For a small business, negotiation can make or break your company. Making the best deal possible is especially critical in tough economic times. By following several tips, your small business can effectively apply negotiating skills in many situations to tighten your bottom line.

Preparation

Know who you are negotiating with. This requires some background research on your part. Talk to other business associates who have worked with the person or company before. They can provide valuable insight. Understand the product or service you plan to negotiate. Use strategic psychology in dealing with them. Have pricing in mind before you begin. Consider budgeting, management directives, sales goals and other outside forces. Deal with the right person who can make business decisions so you don’t need to talk to someone else with more authority when you think you have already reached an agreement. 

Diagnosing Your Prospects' Needs

As a salesperson, your role is to help your prospects solve problems and create new opportunities. Your product or service will improve their situation in some way. But before you can show the prospect how that will happen, you must uncover their needs.

Finding a prospect's needs works a lot like a doctor's appointment. The prospect is willing to talk with you because he sees that he has a problem, but he may not know or realize the specific nature of his problem. Like a doctor, your task is to ask detailed questions to identify the specific symptoms, and then use that information to diagnose a cure (hopefully, the product you're selling).

5 Common Sales Campaign Errors

Sales campaigns cost time and money to launch. They often disrupt the participants' schedules and create a higher level of stress. But a good campaign can more than compensate for these issues by producing a huge boost to sales – something everyone can get behind. If your last campaign or two hasn't been attended by success, check the list below to see if you've been making any of these common errors.

1. Not Researching Your Prospects
Before you start any campaign, you need to know that your approach will appeal to your hot prospects. It doesn't matter how hard you work on your offer if you end up with something that no one really wants! Just as importantly, prospects will respond far better if you already know something about them. At a bare minimum, you should know the prospect's name and (for B2B sales) his company name and title. The more you know over and above that, the easier it will be to connect with that prospect. 

Recruiting Sales People The Right Way‏

Successfully recruiting sales people who will make a positive contribution to your organization requires a different approach to hiring than recruiting for other positions. Sales is a high impact, value-driven area, and the cost of an underperforming hire in sales is commensurately high; conversely, improving your sales recruiting can have a bigger impact on your bottom line than virtually any other business activity. To gain an advantage with your sales hiring, take note of these guidelines for recruiting sales people the right way.

Profile Your Ideal Sales Person

Going Beyond Order-Taking

An order taker is best defined as a salesperson who only sells the products that the prospect already wants. It's always a great feeling when a new prospect calls up out of the blue and is ready to buy, but those situations should be the exception, not the rule. Selling is about offering products that the customer doesn't know he needs until you show him that he does. If all you do is fill orders, you're not selling.

Some salespeople are afraid to actively pursue prospects. They dread cold calling because they feel it's being “pushy.” If you share this attitude, it's crucial that you clear it out of your head as soon as possible. You're not being pushy or overly aggressive when you reach out to new prospects or upsell existing customers; you're helping them to fix problems or otherwise improve their situations.

How to Handle Objections in Six Easy Steps

Most salespeople think of objections as a bad thing... but they're missing the big picture. If your prospect raises an objection, that's actually a good sign. The fact that they're talking out their concern means that they're giving you a chance to answer it. If someone is completely uninterested in buying your product, they won't bother to object – generally they'll just sit through your presentation in silence (with arms folded) and then send you away. Here's a simple process to help resolve your prospect's objections.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: Five to fifteen minutes 

3 Technology Traps to Avoid in Sales

In sales we work hard to create mutual next steps with prospective customers and ultimately to help buying opportunities for these prospects – these buyers.

But time and again, we get bombarded with interruptions, alerts, tools, and technology. Younger sales reps tend to be more used to an interruption-based work day filled with texts, chat, some e-mail and perhaps phone calling all as a part of their day. Older sales reps can get stuck in a rut doing the same things they have done before, often with less technology and getting the same sub-par or average results.

Either way, there is a lot of lost productivity among the noise and disturbances. The cost of interruption is high – it can take up to 23 minutes to get back to a task after being interrupted, according to a 2008 study done by Gloria Mark of the University of California, Irvine.

Are You A "Contagious" Salesperson?

If you were to ask a hundred different salespeople who sell complex solutions to describe their selling approach, one of the most frequent responses would be “consultative.” Simply put, this sales approach is based upon establishing oneself as a business expert who sets out to understand and solve the customer’s business problems. Like a consultant, the salesperson studies the customer’s environment and applies industry knowledge to create a solution that theoretically differentiates the salesperson from the competition.

Hunting for Business Ideas? Consider Looking in These 8 Hot Industries

There may be a lot of economic uncertainty, but that doesn't mean it's a bad time to launch a business. For a few business ideas, take a spin through this list of eight online industries expected to see healthy U.S. revenue growth in 2013 that are hot for startups, according to industry research firm IBISWorld.

Social network game development -- People are spending more time on social networks like Facebook and they are also spending an ever increasing number of hours online, thanks to the rapid adoption of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Consumers are spending more time playing games that are embedded into their social network: The industry has grown by an astonishing 184 percent per year on average for the past five years, IBIS reports. By the end of 2013, U.S. sales in the industry are expected to grow another 32 percent and hit $6 billion. 

5 Common Sales Campaign Errors

Sales campaigns cost time and money to launch. They often disrupt the participants' schedules and create a higher level of stress. But a good campaign can more than compensate for these issues by producing a huge boost to sales – something everyone can get behind. If your last campaign or two hasn't been attended by success, check the list below to see if you've been making any of these common errors.

1. Not Researching Your Prospects
Before you start any campaign, you need to know that your approach will appeal to your hot prospects. It doesn't matter how hard you work on your offer if you end up with something that no one really wants! Just as importantly, prospects will respond far better if you already know something about them. At a bare minimum, you should know the prospect's name and (for B2B sales) his company name and title. The more you know over and above that, the easier it will be to connect with that prospect. 

Πωλήσεις:Τα πιο συνηθισμένα λάθη και πως να τα αποφύγετε

Υπάρχουν κάποια κοινά λάθη προσέγγισης που μπορούν να προκαλέσουν δυσπιστία στους υποψήφιους πελάτες σας. Περιγράφουμε παρακάτω τα πιο συνηθισμένα και τον τρόπο για να τα αποφύγετε. Γιατί δεν είναι εύκολο να κερδίσετε έναν πελάτη που δεν σας εμπιστεύεται.

Μη προσεγγίζετε τον πελάτη σας βασιζόμενοι σε ένα ψέμα

Πολλές προωθητικές επιστολές και ηλεκτρονικά μηνύματα χρησιμοποιούν μια δικαιολογία του τύπου «κοιτούσα τις επαφές μου και σκέφθηκα να επικοινωνήσω μαζί σας» ή ακόμα χειρότερα «λυπήθηκα που άκουσα ότι δεν είστε ευχαριστημένος από τον προμηθευτή σας». Μη τις χρησιμοποιείτε. Κανένας δεν πρόκειται να σας πιστέψει. Όλοι γνωρίζουν ότι πολλές προωθητικές επιστολές ή ηλεκτρονικά μηνύματα έχουν μαζικό χαρακτήρα και προσωποποιούνται με κάποια μέθοδο συγχώνευσης αλληλογραφίας. Ακόμα χειρότερα, αν ο ανταγωνιστής σας έχει δυσαρεστήσει με τις υπηρεσίες ή τα προϊόντα του τον υποψήφιο πελάτη σας, ποιος μπορεί να πιστέψει ότι λυπάστε γι αυτό.

Improve Your Sales Force Despite Veteran Salespeople

This past summer, the Boston Red Sox celebrated their 100th Anniversary.  Every living player and manager who wore the uniform was invited and many came to participate.  Those veterans included National Baseball Hall of Fame members Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice and Carl Yastrzemski.  The veterans are loved and cherished by the fan base.  Their appearances provided opportunities to coach current players.  It helped grow the business of Red Sox baseball.

6 Reasons Original Marketing Materials Sell

The siren call of a premade print design can be hard for a small-business owner to ignore. As CEO of Company Folders, Inc., I’ve spent nearly a decade providing clients with original die-cut marketing materials. I’ve also run into plenty of people who seem more interested in using a generic “cookie cutter” design. Whether from print-on-demand sites or the templates in your publishing software of choice, the appeal of a quick, inexpensive and easy solution to your marketing needs is sometimes too tempting to pass up.

However, actually using a premade design can spell disaster for your small business and hurt the reputation of your brand. Here’s why:

How to Create a Sales Forecast

Knowing how to forecast your sales is hugely helpful in creating a sales plan. You'll have a much better understanding of which sales activities are most useful at the moment if you have a good idea of what your next commissions check will look like. No forecasting method is 100% accurate, but there's a simple method that will give you a good idea of what your status will be in the near future.

Start by listing all the prospects you have in your pipeline at the moment. You'll want to keep modifying this list in the future, so you'd be advised to type it up in your spreadsheet program or word processor for easier updating later. Your list should contain four columns: the prospect's name, the probable value of the sale, the likelihood that you'll close that sale, and a final column to calculate the expected value.

6 Things Every Customer Wants

Contrary to popular belief, customers are less interested in price than in these six things.

All customers want the highest quality at the lowest price, right? Well, sort of. That stuff is important but, surprisingly, the quality vs. price formula is not usually on the top of the customer's list of concerns, especially when it comes to selling B2B.

According to numerous surveys, B2B customers want the following six things from the people who sell to them: 

Creating Snappy Sales Presentations

Should you kiss your PowerPoints goodbye? Might not be a bad idea. 95% or more of the presentations I see actually HURT your chances of success. They're long. They're all about your company, your products and your services. Blah...blah...blah.

And, truth be told, if you were in the prospect's shoes, you'd probably be bored to tears by what you're presenting.

In SNAP Selling, I talk about using the four SNAP Factors as your guiding light in determining what to include and how you present it. Here's an excerpt you might find helpful in preparing for your meetings.  

How to Speak to a Group

Many salespeople find themselves giving sales presentations to quite large groups of people, especially in complex B2B sales. You might have to present to multiple decision makers, end users, lawyers, purchasing agents, department heads, etc. all at the same time. Speaking to a large group of people is very different from speaking to just one or two – and it's often unnerving for the speaker.

3 Ways Sales Reps Grow their Visibility

As a sales professional, do you invest in getting known in your marketplace and in growing your career?

Do you have a toolbox of your own tools which can help separate you from the rest of the noise in your industry and sector?

This topic has been talked about recently through colleague Miles Austin’s post Snap-on Tool Trucks and Sales Reps. Don’t just read the post but read all the comments too. The summary of the discussion is that many sales professionals don’t arm themselves with the tools they need on their own – they make a career change and get to the new job. They are usually told what their tools are – or are not.

Top Reasons Salespeople Lose Business

Harvard Business Review is arguably the most prestigious publication for business leaders and management thinkers. Here’s one of my recent Harvard Business Review articles titled “Top Reasons Salespeople Lose Busines.”

There's a natural tendency to assume that the losing salespeople lacked sales prowess that the winner possessed or their product was far inferior in some way. However, in the overwhelming majority of interviews the evaluators ranked all of the competing salespeople and the feature sets of their products as being roughly equal. This suggests that there are other factors that separate the winner from the losers with some being completely out of the salesperson's control. Below, you will find these key factors along with a corresponding win-loss interview quote. 

What’s New in the Sales World for 2013?

If you haven’t noticed, it’s a new year.

The question is, “Are you still using 2012 strategies to sell or, even worse, are you still using 2002 strategies?”

We’re now in 2013, and although it may seem like things haven’t changed, they have.

The biggest thing is what hasn’t changed, and that is the amount of competition you will face and your customers will face.