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…
How often have you heard the sales gurus talk about the “pain and gain” issues in selling? And how to identify those sensitive targets as buying motivations and sell to them. In fact, the real issue is Passion. What is the Buyer (not you) really interested in doing? What problem requires solving? That’s the hidden,…
The hardest hire you will ever make is finding and hiring a good sales person. Sales people are trained to mask their behaviors and feed a prospect what they want to see. Now they are selling themselves to you. In this article, you’ll learn how to use proven techniques to look behind the mask and…
Do your employees spend, what seems to you to be, an inordinate amount of time on the internet at work…whether during business hours or their personal time? Ever wonder what they’re doing? Ever wonder about the nature of the emails they send or receive? To control net use (and abuse), you need a formal policy.
Do you want to provide superior customer service to your clients? Do you want to improve productivity? These are proven results that you too can achieve by implementing the Real Time features available today. In this article, noted agency workflow expert Laura Nettles discusses the importance of rethinking agency workflows to incorporate Real Time. Laura…
