The issues of attitude and motivation seem to confound most sales organization. Companies will go looking for a “motivational speaker” to pump life into a lethargic sales group. Sales managers will search high and low for the latest gimmick to try to stimulate their sales effort. What they don’t seem to understand is that they…
The most often misunderstood function in a sales plan is the training of staff. The first rule of training is that nothing stays fixed. Training is an ongoing process that occurs whether you want it to or not. Your choice is not whether you train or not. The choice is whether you train your staff…
Most claims of success by sales trainers are a fraud. Many sales trainers are like roosters taking credit for the dawn…they crow about the effectiveness of their workshops when, in fact, there is virtually no way to substantiate their claims. Most sales training is done because management doesn’t know what else to do to improve…
In order to migrate (develop) a prospect up to buyer and then on to loyal customer requires a sales person to have an overall account management vision. What’s needed is a new view of how to “get out of the box” of being a Willy Loman…an order taker. The game is to raise the relationship…
In the early days of organized selling, when behavioral science was coming of age, some of the companies fielding large numbers of door-to-door sales people turned to the new science for help. They adopted highly manipulative psychological tactics to their selling processes. After championing selling as an honorable profession (and spending over ten years teaching…
Probably no myth is more pervasive than the idea that there are “born” sales people. What a crock. Granted there are some people who seem to naturally have the attributes we associate with “good selling.” However, most of the vision of what constitutes selling is manufactured by media portrayals of sales people, not what they…
All the books you’ve read, all of the “rah-rah” rallies you’ve attended, all of the workshops you sat through don’t mean squat if you don’t convert the knowledge into skill. Take a lesson from the pros and get yourself a coach….
Selling may be simple but consulting is hard — and it’s different! You’re kidding yourself if you think you can hire a “sales trainer” to teach your sales people how to be consultants — No way! We’re talking about a completely different set of skills. It’s not about “Selling skills.” Let’s back up. What is…
What’s your “pickup” line? “Hi sailor, been in town long? I’m a Libra, you must be a Capricorn.” For a business, the pickup line for buyers might include the trigger words “Free,” “Sale,” “Bargain,” etc. In a business-to-business relationship the message is more subtle, talking about “quality,” “integrity,” “reliability,” etc. Somehow a seller must attract…
Most sales people have problems with closing because they don’t understand the Big Secret of selling. They think you close the sale by asking for the order. Wrong! You close the sale by getting the buyer to acknowledge that they are going to get everything they want from your proposal. The Big Secret: Close the…
