To get past the first meeting, use questions to discover the right level of information to give a prospect

The mysteriously named Velvet Hammer over at sales recruitment blog The Hire Sense discusses a survey from CSO Insights, along with his own experience that suggests that many sales people aren’t getting past the first meeting because, at the stage in the call when it is appropriate to talk about their products and services, the prospect expects more than basic product information (which they can find in numerous places, including the web). If the sales person does provide something new (or unknown), the prospect perceives that there has been no value added by the sales person and therefore sees no need to meet again.
(more…)

More sales trickery from Gitomer

I won’t be using them, but you can’t help but chuckle at sales comedian, sorry, I mean guru, Jeffrey Gitomer’s two ideas for getting voicemails returned.

(Tell me if you find any funny/useful sales videos online and I’ll post ‘em here. Thanks.)

Bad behaviour from the Eighties

It’s 8 mins or so but worth watching. By the way tell me if you find any funny/useful sales videos online and I’ll post ‘em here.

Sales people can use fear (perceived future pain) to create results right away.

Marketing man Seth Godin understands a fundamental principle of sales in this post : fear drives buying action. As he explains, “Fear is a universal emotion, it’s viral and people will go to great lengths to make it go away.”

How can sales people use fear? “Buy it or Knuckles here will continue the negotiations” would probably be considered ethically dubious. Here’s a better approach. Most of us already sell around “pain” or “problems” (i.e. identifying, drawing out and investigating problems that a prospect has right now). For example:
(more…)

Tough sales management from sales film Glengarry Glen Ross (bad language warning…)

(Read “Part 1 of 2 : Sales has an image problem” first!)

Today’s sales professional should be proud to be an important, highly-skilled value creator.

Sales’ current PR problem stems from stereotypes that were formed before “consultative” sales methods were introduced when, on the whole, sales really was a predatory, combatitive, money grabbing, win/lose affair.

Sales professionals as value creators
(more…)

Negative views of the sales profession cause damage to companies, economies and individuals.

“So, what do you do?”

“I’m in sales,” you reply.

“Ohh…” they say, looking slightly uncomfortable. “What is it you really want to do?”

We’ve all heard this before, or something very close to it. I wrote an article for the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management’s print magazine Winning Edge about this very subject. Here’s a cut down web version:

A Major Role

Sales has an image problem. James Hammersley, the CEO of sales consultancy Win recently told me that, when visiting his old university to give a speech on selling, he asked the audience to describe the defining traits of a salesperson. The responses included ‘sleazy’, ‘untrustworthy’ and even ‘alcoholic’!
(more…)