Why Optimism Sells

People want to do business with people they like. And that means happy, upbeat salespeople are more successful than their dour colleagues. Optimism is helpful not only because it causes you to project a happy attitude, but also because it equates to confidence – one of the most crucial selling skills.

When you first make contact with a prospect it most likely happens over the phone. The person you're speaking with has never met you and probably knows nothing about you, aside from potentially having some secondhand knowledge of your company. Taking the sale to the next level requires you to be the kind of person who that prospect feels he can trust at least a little – enough that he's willing to take the time to speak with you further.

Why I Hate Closing Techniques

“My salespeople need to get better at closing,” the Vice President of Sales said to me shortly after I arrived in his office.

If I’ve heard that line once, I’ve heard it a hundred times. Despite being on an important sales call, I couldn’t help but cringe. You see, I will never, ever train people on closing techniques if they sell to the corporate marketplace.

Why not? When you analyze what happens when you teach sellers how to be great closers, you’ll understand my perspective.

Test: Do Your Sales Prospecting Habits Maximize Your Connect Rate?

When I talk to businesses who are using inbound lead generation, but who aren't seeing the sales that they want, I usually start with questions that identify what they're doing wrong (or not doing) at the top of their sales funnel. If the top of the sales funnel isn't predictably full, sales usually falter at the bottom. Maybe not right away. But, someday, they'll dip if they don't have the ability to predictably find qualified sales opportunties amongst the leads they've attracted.

I've only ever spoken to one person who was doing everything right. So, don't feel bad if you fail the test.

7 Paradoxical Sales Principles

Recognizing and acting on these 7 paradoxical sales principles is critical to your long-term success.

1. To win more sales, stop selling.
When people feel like they're being sold, they react negatively and put up barriers. Focus on helping your prospects achieve their business, professional and personal objectives – not making a sale.

Selling to Small Businesses

For certain products and services, the 'sweet spot' prospect is small businesses. That kind of B2B sales requires a very different approach from selling to big corporations or, for that matter, from selling to consumers. Small businesses have their own needs and limitations, and if you can identify and address these you can have considerable success with this market.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a small business as one that is for-profit, privately owned, and not dominant in its field. Small businesses generally have revenues under $20 million a year and employ fewer than 500 employees (sometimes much fewer). Small businesses don't have the need or the funds to keep a purchasing expert on staff. So if you sell to small businesses and your product is something more expensive than office supplies, odds are you'll be selling to the business owner or owners.

What Will Your Business Sell and How?

Once you've taken the leap and decided to start your own business, you've got to figure out what your business will sell!

What Should I Sell?

If you like to watch crime shows or read mystery novels, you are probably familiar with the three elements of committing a crime: means, motive and opportunity. Oddly enough, these three factors are also the most important elements of starting a business.

The Challenger Sale Debate – Is it missing the point?

There has been a lot a debate among the sales training / sales enablement community about The Challenger Sale from CEB’s Sales Executive Council.  Some of it has been cogent and balanced, but unfortunately a lot has been mud-slinging and poorly articulated or uninformed specious commentary that does not reflect well on the sales training industry. Most of the latter type has, probably predictably, come from those who might have good reason to be threatened by the seeming ubiquity or pervasiveness of TCS.  On the other hand, where measured arguments have been put forward, it seems that these originate more often from users, practitioners, or observers who acknowledge the value of TCS while wondering about its place in an overall sales eco-system.

Great Sales Sins – Trashing Your Competition

“Hi Bob, have you tried “natural” male enhancement? I saw the commercial on TV last night and immediately thought of you”

“Wow Barbara, that dress looks great. Did you get it in the “big girls” section at Lane Bryant?”

“So the wife and I just joined a swingers club……”

I would hope the readers of this blog would agree that these are lines that would exude a certain level of awkwardness and discomfort if they appeared in casual conversation.

Selling is a contact sport

Timeless tips on winning over the customer

At a very young age, I could tell the difference between a ’55, ’56 and ’57 Chevy. Later, I could tell the difference between a ’61, ’62 and ’63 Chevy Impala, which was considerably more difficult.

I’ve loved cars since I was very young. So when I needed a job while attending high school, I applied at Paramount Chevrolet in Downey, Calif. At the time, they were the greatest volume Chevy dealership in the area and employed a large number of salesmen, and I made friends with most of them. I often received tips for helping them resolve minor customer complaints and handle favors, like free car washes.

23 Rules for Face-to-Face Meetings

Follow these guidelines when you meet with customers and you're much more likely to win their business.

While a lot of business is conducted today over the Internet and the telephone, customers often want to meet you personally, just to make certain you're the kind of person who can be trusted to deliver what you promise.

Here are the eternal DOs and DON'Ts of these face-to-face meetings, based upon my own experience and dozens of anecdotes from "school of hard knocks" salespeople:

What is a Complex Sale?

Definition:
A complex sale is one that involves more than one decision maker. In order to complete a complex sale, a salesperson must convince at least a majority of the decision makers, rather than needing to influence just one person. This task is made even harder by the fact that the salesperson usually isn't told just who the decision makers are, and may not even get a chance to speak with them all!

Complex sales are especially common in large B2B sales environments, but are not unknown in smaller sales as well. In consumer sales situations, the decision makers may include a husband and wife, children, roommates, etc. Usually there will be one decision maker who is responsible for making the final decision, while the other decision makers, who have a stake in the purchase for one reason or another, will try to influence the chief decision maker.

Are Sales People Afraid?

I know, it sounds a bit silly. Afraid of what?
Well, here is the thing. In my experience, many sales people are actually afraid of rejection. Why?

Because there is no business practice where you have to bring yourself in as much as when selling. Whether it’s selling a product or a service, sales is emotional and personal. We professionals in sales live by how well we perform. That means our livelihood is in the balance every day, every call, every client interaction. Though not as common in a traditional sales environment, fear can also be felt in a consultative sales environment.

One Big Idea to Help Sales Reps Connect to Buyers

Being at work is more of a state of mind than a place, according to IBM’s Senior Marketing Manager of Cloud Computing, Cheryl Mikovch at a DemandCon Boston recent session.

Customers are connected 24 hours a day posting needs, concerns, and ideas all the time. Marketers need to be listening and responding.

Mikovch went on to talk about the social transformation that has gone on at IBM.com – getting over 1,000 of their sellers to use social tools including text chats, video chats and intelligent listening throughout the organization.

Types of Professional Buyers

If you sell B2B, you probably deal with a lot of professional buyers. Buyers are responsible for finding materials for their companies, and they can literally lose their jobs if they make a bad deal – so they take purchasing very seriously. Experienced buyers know more about sales than many salespeople. Using sales tricks and manipulation tactics on a professional buyer is usually a bad idea, as they'll spot these tactics immediately and won't be happy. Instead, the best way to sell to a professional is to figure out what motivates them and then supply it. Different types of buyers tend to be motivated by different drives and goals, so being able to spot each type early in the sales process is crucial.

Evaluating Sales Success - What is the Standard?

 I was recently preparing to deliver a "surgical strike" report to a new client.  A surgical strike is a summary of the sales evaluation  we do for organizations to help them understand why they are getting their current sales results.  This in turn helps the company and us determine the correct path to take to improve sales management, sales behaviors, sales skills, and eventually, sales results.

As I was getting ready, I had the TV on and, during a commercial break, a politician was touting the success he has had during his tenure in office.  One of the statistics stated was that regarding unemployment. His statement went something like:  "Over the last 4 years, our state unemployment has consistently been lower than the national average."

The Importance of Positive Sales Attitude - A Tribute to a Friend

We recently attended the funeral for a friend, Kevin Dully, who was only 53 years old.  He was diagnosed with Leukemia 20 years ago and had been fighting for his life for most of them.  He lived 19 years longer than he was expected to, but his best days were probably more like our worst days ever, in constant pain, discomfort, and with an inability to do many things which we take for granted.  Through all his suffering, he had a family, worked full-time, drove, and NEVER complained.  As a matter of fact, he had a lot in common with John Robinson.  Whenever he saw anyone, regardless of how he was feeling, he greeted everyone with a great big smile.  And when he was asked how he was doing or how it was going, he always said, "It's all good. I'm here!"

Assessing Prospects

Experienced salespeople have an almost clairvoyant ability to home in on the best leads. Years of following through on hundreds or thousands of sales prospects gives these sales superstars an intuitive understanding of what to look for in a prospective deal. For salespeople who are still acquiring their share of experience, a more analytical approach can help identify truly worthwhile opportunities.

The first step to assessing a prospective deal is to determine whether or not the target is a qualified prospect for your product. If the individual or company you're examining doesn't have both a genuine need for your product and the ability to buy it, there's no point in pursuing them further. You may need to gather more information before you can determine if they are a true prospect; such details are often posted on the Internet, particularly for B2B prospects.

Why Sales Meetings? Do They Lead to Selling?

I just read a quote by noted business expert, Peter Drucker:

"Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organizations. For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time. In an ideally designed structure...there would be no meetings.

We meet because people holding different jobs have to cooperate to get a specific task done. We meet because the knowledge and experience needed in a specific situation are not available in one head,but have to be pieced together out of the experience and knowledge of several people."

Basic sales tactics and the law

The basic rules of selling are always the same, whether you're dealing with customers in person, by phone, business-to-business or in a retail environment. However it's important to be aware of the legal obligations around over the phone and in person sales outlined on this page.  You can get further guidance on Australian consumer law from the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) website.

3 Ways Curation Grows Opportunities in B2B Sales

Remember the business conference or sales offsite you attended to sharpen your skills – perhaps you were a speaker. Even if you were an attendee, you can benefit from being connected to a great event through curation.
Curation is when you pull together pieces and parts of the event you attended and create one single place people can go online to see more about it. The same idea works in networking – instead of being a spoke, you become the hub.  I’ll give a few examples below, and ways that this grows business.