When I ask sales people what their biggest challenge is in getting to speak directly with decision makers they are targeting, and voice mail or gatekeepers are at the top of the list, (while call reluctance should be right there with the other two, they don’t usually volunteer that fact). We have dealt with voice mailin the past, so today we’ll
Hiring sales people from the competition always seems like a no-brainer, but there are many pitfalls with this hiring strategy.
Life would be grand if we could sprinkle a few seeds in the ground, fertilize, add water…and a great sales person would sprout. This is truly a pipedream, but one often pursued by small business owners and sales manag
There is no doubt that experience is a plus in any vocation, including sales, just look at any job posting for sales, and with the exception of entry level positions, they will demand experience both in terms of tenure and industry related. As with other things in life, there are no absolutes, it is usually a case of upside and downside. The up
Sales is all about the execution, and execution, or at least good execution, is a result of proper planning, ignore or short cut any part of that, and you will have to work harder, or miss winnable opportunities. While there are many factors contributing to the outcome of any sale, there are two that are always present, and have to be dealt with.
Want to win more sales? Then you need to do everything you can to give yourself an unfair advantage over your competitors.
Research shows that one of the best ways to do this is by being an early bird:
Forrester Research discovered that the first vendor to reach a prospect and set the buying vision has a 74% close rate.
InsideSale
For years, we’ve been told that sales is a numbers game. To be successful, all you needed to do was to fill your pipeline with an endless supply of suspects. And then, a certain percentage of them would miraculously turn into prospects, and ultimately customers – if you were persistent enough.
Lots of people still believe that. I don’t
How much of a premium would you pay to bet on a sporting event where the odds favoured your team over the other by 6000 to 100? A no-brainer right, in fact too good to be real, right? Let’s look at it a bit differently, how would you like to be up against a professional opponent favoured by similar odds, an opponent who practices every day, honin
Everyone is searching for answers on how to sell in a down economy. Many feel that the sales game has changed, but in reality the economic challenge has forced sales people to improve their skills and refine their approach.
When I present to sales organizations searching for the Holy Grail to sell in this economy, I start with a very basic quest
Said the Cold Call To The Socialite
Recent headlines about AC/DC’s drummer’s brush with the law got me thinking – why would someone want to kill someone? Such a passionate act must be a result of some big or egregious cause, or at the very least a means of avoiding harm. Then I remembered that in sales we see this all the time, over an
Everywhere you look these days, experts are proclaiming that people are 60%—or more—of the way through their decision process before they contact you or your company.
Most people don’t believe it when I tell them it’s super easy to increase their sales IQ. But first, let me tell you about some interesting data.
The
