Sales Training Articles

How often are you the lowest priced vendor bidding for new business? If you are like the vast majority of my readers, the answer is almost never. The reality of selling is there will always be some competitors who will under-bid you and others to win the business. So how are you and the rest […]

NOTE: Please read Jim’s update (5/2/17) at the end of this article. His answer to the posted comments.  How are you opening up your phone calls, especially when cold calling? There’s a simple four step process you can utilize that will increase your success grabbing a prospect’s attention and positioning the reason for your call.

How strong are your strategic selling skills? Strategic selling involves increasing your competitive advantage by strengthening your ability to communicate your uniqueness, value, and competitive differential to a customer or prospect. How successful have you been explaining your competitive uniqueness and differentiation to your potential buyers? What is involved with strategic selling? So what is

Do you see selling as an event or as a process? Less trained or experienced sales reps tend to see selling as just a series of stand-alone events. They work hard at every selling opportunity but when that sale is complete, whether it was won or lost, they see that sales effort as now being

How high is your competitive awareness? On a scale of one to 10…with 10 being strongest…pick a number you feel most represents your current level of competitive awareness. Most experienced sales professionals identify their competitive awareness level as around a seven to nine…what’s your number? Having a comprehensive understanding of your competition and how they

Can you increase your persuasiveness when presenting your ideas to customers? A powerful idea that might be of help originally came out of the 1940’s and involves “pencil selling” as a way to get your message remembered and to help you maintain control of your sales presentation. “Pencil selling” simply means using a blank pad

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

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

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!”

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