Will you…? Did you…?

Among the most powerful words you can utter as a sales manager are “Will you…?” and “Did you…?”

Accountability changes lives. And it starts with not asking, “Could you make time to…?” or “Would you be able to…?” or “If it works into your schedule…” Those questions don’t work. As a sales manager you have the responsibility to ask “Will you…?” questions when giving assignments to your team members. And these should be followed up in the appropriate timeframe with “Did you…?” questions.

You can’t be bashful about asking in this manner. There are sales representatives out there who won’t unless you ask “Will you…?” and “Did you…?”

When to qualify an account

There’s a school of thought that says you work hard to qualify an account up front, so you can “soft sell” them on the back-end. In other words, you press your contact hard, and reward him or her with an easier sales process once you know you’re dealing with the right person. I think this is completely insufficient advice.

You are never “done” qualifying an account. Companies’ priorities change, slowing down or speeding up timelines. Decision-makers influence and involvement, particularly in larger deals, comes and goes. Sales are routinely lost late in the game. And it’s almost always because the sales person didn’t adequately qualify the account—either up front or throughout the process. Read the full post

Don’t go it alone

Many successful sales professionals work much better alone. That’s one reason why many of them make average to poor sales managers. But it’s not healthy to work in a vacuum.

Justsell.com used to provide a great forum for sales pros to bounce ideas off of one another, to connect, to vent. It wasn’t cutting edge technology, just a typical web bulletin board. Well, they’re back. Visit Salespractice.com to share your opinions, read others’, and toss ideas around.

I’ve also added them to my list of important links at the bottom right.

23 ways to generate revenue

If you own a small business, you should always be on the lookout for ways to grow sales. Whether you’re focused on marketing a product, groups of related products, or services of any kind, here are 23 ideas to generate more revenue:

• Sell a product one-by-one.
• Sell similar products packaged together.
• Sell a “license” to use your product for a defined time period.
• Sell a “subscription” to your product for a defined time period.
• Sell a flat weekly- or monthly-fee service.

Read the full post

Get a yes or a no

Received my eCoach newsletter today from Duane Sparks, author of the book Action Selling. (I’d highly recommend you subscribe.) He had a great tidbit on always asking for a commitment:

“…in the end there is only one reason why a salesperson’s job exists. Your principal mission is to gain commitment from customers.”

I completely agree. It’s all about results. A lot of things matter, but you are measured on the revenue you generate, not the strength of your customer relationships, your vast industry experience, or the timeliness of your reports. It’s all about the numbers. You are fooling yourself if you believe anything else.

10 Account Management Fundamentals

I’m seeing an alarming number of business-to-business, sales/service professionals ignore some basic fundamentals when it comes to managing their existing customer base. If you work in a product-delivering service company you’ve got to review these suggestions for getting back on track and staying proactive.

Read the full post

Be genuine when prospecting

Jeffrey Gitomer addressed an important subject in his Business Journal column titled “Be Careful in Using Outsider to Dial for Dollars?” yesterday. In that column, he asks a great question and shares his opinion:

Why would you trust making a first impression on your customer to a total stranger?…In my opinion, you can outsource everything in your company—except sales and senior management. Read the full post

Building rapport

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the degree to which sales professionals build rapport with their customers and prosects. It’s becoming a lost art as we all, me included, strive to “save time,” or “get to the point” when cold calling and selling.

I’ve come to the conclusion that building rapport, contrary to others’ beliefs, doesn’t start with “you.” It starts with the other person. Let me put it this way. It starts with making your first interaction with others all about them and their interests and issues, not about you and your solutions. To me that means that, while certain things-to-do are important, it’s less about technique and more about how genuinely interested in others you are and show you are that makes the difference. Read the full post

Qualifying prospects

There’s nothing more frustrating for most sales professionals than investing time and energy (and emotion) on a prospect only to have it slip through your fingers for reasons unforeseen.

Yet, time and time again I’ve observed that most surprises are avoidable. It’s about how you qualify your prospects early on.

Read the full post

Sales training wake-up call…

I remain optimistic. But I recently suffered through yet another meeting with a Fortune 500 sales representative where I was the prospect, not the trainer, and the result was a complete disappointment.

In this instance I was simply buying promotional wear (polos, jackets, etc.). I’ve talked with this individual on multiple occasions (we’ll call him David), yet he arrived without the samples I expected, without information on the other items we had discussed, and without the pricing we planned to cover. He was utterly unprepared.

This was the third experience I’ve had along these lines in recent weeks with others. Read the full post

« Previous Page — Next Page »