Sales philosophies and actions are at the core of good business itself

When I was at school I liked the idea of being a “businessman”, with high powered meetings, travelling around meeting influential people and striking deals. Aside from setting up your own business or running someone else’s, sales is the profession closest to that school boy’s dream. Ultimately, good sales and good business require many of the same perspectives and actions.

Consider the GetAbstract summary of the book “The Definitive Drucker”. Drucker has often been called “the Father of Modern Management”, but his teachings on how to be successful in business were remarkably similar to how to be successful in sales. Consider the following 7 points that summarise his advice to business leaders:

• Be customer centric – Customers belong at the centre of all business decisions. “The purpose of a business is to create and serve a customer.” Sales people find customers, discover and develop their issues/problems (create the customer) and then design and deliver a solution (serve the customer)
• Be selective - Decide who is your customer, and who is not your customer – Sales people decide on a target market and then carefully qualify each prospect, hand-picking the opportunities to spend time on. (more…)

There’s been a lot of talk about cold calling being “dead” in the last year or so.

This undeniably populist movement proposes that prospecting is now about face to face networking, referrals, the use of blogs, writing articles and whitepapers, pod and video casts, a presence on social networking sites, and other ways to contribute value to and build credibility in your target market. Like cold calling, if done well, I am sure these methods are effective.
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