As a sales manager, are you spending more times working to solve symptoms or problems from your sales team members? Sadly, most of the sales managers I see spend the majority of their time only working on symptoms and not problems. The majority of all the sales problems brought to me by sales people asking […]
Focusing on Problems – Not Symptoms MORE »
The reality of today’s buyers is they rarely make decisions alone. A “final decision maker” will still seek opinions and insights from others, even when they alone are the final decision maker of their vendor selection. However, most sales professionals only focus their attention selling to their main buyer or decision maker and see little
Selling to Your Buyer’s Entire Political Culture MORE »
What is your selling approach and competitive uniqueness? Is your selling strategy to win the business based on having the lowest prices or are you selling on your greater value and lower total cost? Less skilled sales people tend to gravitate to selling on price. They lack the skills of probing to understand better, their
Positioning Buyers to Use Your Low Risk Customer Buying Process MORE »
There‘s a new term that’s crept into today’s selling and service language that’s having a severe and negative impact on our customers… and how they view our efforts to help them, and I bet it’s a term you’ve used yourself in the last 24 hours when talking with your customer. And the term is…“No problem!”
You Can Always Sell More, By Not Saying ‘It’s No Problem!’ MORE »
Are your salespeople maximizing all of the selling opportunities available in your markets? How are you, as their sales manager, contributing to their selling success and profitability? What “management style”do you utilize to lead your sales team? There are two basic managerial styles or philosophies of leading a sales team. You can manage and lead
Sell More by Becoming More of a ‘Managing Manager’ MORE »
How good a listener are you? When I ask this question of experienced sales pro’s the overwhelming majority immediately identify they’re great listeners and identify their listening skills as one of the reasons for their long-term selling success. But the reality is significantly different for most salespeople, even the most experienced and successful ones. The
Sell More By Strengthening Your Listening Skills MORE »
Do you have professional salespeople on your team? Of course almost all sales managers would answer yes, even when it’s not really the correct answer. What’s your definition of a professional? The best definition I’ve heard of a professional is based on their consistency of performance. Describing someone as a professional is also saying there’s
Help Reps Shift From Intuitive to Structured and Consistent MORE »
Everyone agrees with new business prospecting being a critical component of any sales territory. However, even during tougher economic conditions the majority of sales people still tend to over-service their existing customers and do as little as possible to find new clients. What about you? How much new business prospecting have you been investing in
As a Sales Professional, Look for New Smokestacks! MORE »
Where do you focus all of your selling efforts? The immediate assumption would be to respond by answering that of course you’re spending as much time as possible selling to your customers! But there is a better long-term answer! I got some of the best advice for my sales career as I started my first
Spend Half Your Time Selling to Customers, Half to Your Company MORE »
How many different people from your company talk with your customers? Consider asking your team to evaluate and discuss two different selling scenarios. The first scenario deals with your newest customers. Ask your team how many different people from your company will talk with a new prospect (either by telephone or “face-to-face”) from the time
Is Everyone Talking to Your Customers Properly Trained and Coached? MORE »
