New year’s resolutions, #1

Each day from now through the end of December, I’ll be adding posts entitled, “New Year’s Resolutions, #x”, in which I’ll be throwing out quick ideas for making incremental improvements in your (and my) sales habits. Here’s #1.

I will make the most of my Mondays and Fridays.

They will become my strongest selling days of each week. Mondays will start off early as I finalize my calendar for the next two weeks. Fridays will finish strong as I wrap up appointments and map out the following week.

What else will you do these days?

Your sales “experience”

An increasingly important aspect of the sales process for outside sales professionals is differentiation. These days, when a person says “differentiation,” it can mean all sorts of things. When I say it, I specifically mean the emotional experience a buyer has with you through the sales/buying process. Read the full post

Great thought for sales trainers

From Ron Willingham, author of Integrity Selling for the 21st Century : How to Sell the Way People Want to Buy.

“You can’t teach people to sell by teaching them to sell. We’re people first, salespeople second.”

The best salespeople I know have superior people skills to begin with, and layered on top of those feelings about people and how to treat them, are their “sales skills.”

Three Signs That a Lead Is Dead

Too many good salespeople chase too many bad sales leads. As a good guideline, here’s how to decide if it’s time to give up: Read the full post

The one closing technique you need to know

Here’s the situation: You’ve worked with a buyer to realize a legitimate want or need for your product; you’ve asked the right questions and presented a sound solution; and throughout the entire process you’ve worked integrity and reliability to develop an excellent rapport with them. At this moment, there’s really only one closing question you should use here. Read the full post

Who will you get to know in 2006?

Okay, so I heard a sales representative, one who is performing at an average clip for his company, utter the infamous cliche last week: “it’s all who you know.”

My question to him was this: Who do you know? Read the full post

How to Avoid Cold Calling

Cold calling door-to-door is the most inefficient means of generating prospects available. That’s not to say you won’t ever generate prospects this way, but it’s by far the most inefficient way to do it.

I’ve posted phone prospecting scripts at this site and added other resources about cold calling. But it has all been under the assumption that you’re doing it in addition to generating prospects through other means.

Well, you’ve got to read this article . Read the full post

The fruits of curiosity

The importance of questions is territory well covered in sales books. But more often, the best conversations and sales “interviews,” are a result of unconsciously curious people.

Think about it. The more interested you are in others: who they are, what’s on their mind, what’s bothering them, what challenges they’re facing, how well things are going, who they do things with, and so on, the more insightful, powerful, and natural questions you will ask. Read the full post

5 Steps to capture sales reps’ knowledge

Sales managers, what’s bouncing around the heads of your sales representatives? You and I both know there’s a goldmine of info that’s stored nowhere but their brain cells. What are you going to do about that? Read the full post

Presentations redux

Previously I posted my opinions on using Powerpoint more…powerfully. If you are in sales and/or you give formal presentations, you’ve got to read that post.

Well, I’ve found a phenomenal follow-up. Check this presentation out by Dick Hardt, CEO of Sxip. (When you get to the page, choose the “Play Large” version in Flash.) Read the full post

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