Learn and stay up-to-date with business book abstracts

(BTW this is an independent recommendation. I have not and will not accept sponsorship/advertising/paid-for-plugs on SalesItch)
As sales people we have to know our prospects’ businesses and industries. We have to understand their challenges and opportunities. That’s a pretty hard thing to do, especially if you deal with a number of industries and/or functions.
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Additions to the most popular post on SalesItch

More questions have been added to the SalesItch Question Bank. A big thanks to Derrick and Mike at The Hire Sense for their contributions to what I hope will become the biggest, best list of sales questions.

Control card rage

Seth Godin makes a good point about business cards in this post :

“In an era where no one dresses up anymore, they give you a chance to position yourself, to represent who you are and what you do in a three cent piece of paper. And yet… almost all business cards are terrible.”
True, but just be careful to avoid card rage (office-safe clip from American Psycho movie)!

What would you do in this situation?

There’s a story in sales job hunting folklore where the smugly smiling interviewer plucks out a pen from his jacket pocket and say, “Sell me this pen”. What would you say? Here are the options I came up with:

• Wind up the interview and walk out (on the basis that if you get the job you will be working for crappy management with an old school approach)
• Sell it “consultatively” – Establish their situation, identify pains, etc (“How do you currently record information? How would you like to change your current situation if you could?” etc ). This could be an exceptionally difficult sell… it’s likely to be a highly undifferentiated product and if the interviewer decides to make life difficult for you are really in trouble!

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Take on the qualities of others to overcome short-term self-doubt

This technique, “Act as if”, seems so “new age-y” that I’d like to tell you that I learned it from some Mr Miyagi style sales guru in a misty Japanese valley when training as a complex-sale ninja.

In fact I learned it from an obnoxious middle-aged sales manager halfway up a tower block in Bristol. Still, it really works, and if you suspend your scepticism for a moment, you could take a look at this and see if it’s for you.

All of us have been in situations in which we feel out of our comfort zone. Meeting senior executives early in your sales career, negotiating lump-in-the-throat important contracts, or presenting to large numbers of people are good examples for most people.
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Get your UK/Euro sales jobs here!

Everyone seems to be asking me for good sales people right now (which is odd, as I’m not actually in recruitment!). Here are the positions I know about. If you are interested, contact me and I’ll put you in touch.

• Software Sales – Field sales, territory based
• 2 x Field sales reps selling into the European academic market
• Web services sales – Field sales, but Oxford based

If none of those grab you, let me know what you’re after, as I know some guys who might be able to help.

Cliched phrases turn buyers off

I think it’s entirely reasonable to suggest that anyone who uses the following phrases in their sales or marketing materials should be shot :

• “In today’s competitive marketplace”
• “In today’s global marketplace”

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