Selling The Doctor Is In Ever notice that when you go to the doctor, you get asked a lot of open ended questions while the physician says little? Much like a doctor, sales people help buyers with problems by asking questions and saying little. Rather, that is what the good sales people do. The patient
Branding Selling With Questions A friend of mine reminded me that selling is not about what you say to the customer, but rather it is about the questions you ask. Many sales people are in love with their own words and ideas. They are often described as having the “gift of gab” which means
Branding Inside the Buyer’s Head Sales people are taught to manage and control the sales process by moving the customer from qualification to presentation to close. While this process accurately describes the activities of the sales person, there is a separate and equally important process at play. That other process is the one in the
Selling Sales Objections Are Cool! When a customer objects, he or she is asking for you to help them better understand your offer. The prospect who presents objections is often more easily sold on your product. How cool is that? No objections? You may be losing the sale since customer silence is not golden in
Branding Tell Me a Story There may no more powerful communication tool than a story well told. A story is not a PowerPoint presentation or a canned pitch or a memorized speech. It is as it sounds: a plain English parable with a beginning, middle, and end. Stories help people understand and make sense of
Selling Giving Bad News Sometimes in sales, you have to give bad news to customers. While this is never easy, a little preparation goes a long way to helping you get the job done. Start by gathering all the facts and preparing yourself emotionally. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes---how would you feel
Customer Service Handshake 101 While at the NXTcomm tradeshow in Las Vegas this week, I had the opportunity to shake hands with dozens of people. The first person I shook hands with offered me a weak and clammy hand, which repulsed me. It got me thinking about this simple greeting and its importance in
Selling Telephone Conference Calls For many of us in sales, it is an everyday occurrence to conduct sales meetings on a conference call with participants from multiple locations. While this can be a terrific way to communicate to multiple people in different locations, the call can be ruined by music on hold, shuffling papers,
Customer Service Body Language Tells a Story Body language helps us communicate whether or not we are aware of it. A recent university study on how people receive information had the following results: * 55% of what we learn from others comes from their body language (mostly from the eyes) * 38% of what we learn from others comes
Branding Phone or E-mail? E-mail communication with customers can be efficient and easy, but it is easy to fall into a bad habit of only using e-mail to handle customer inquiries. If your goal is to build better relationships with your customers, the telephone may be a better tool. While talking on the phone
Ethics Business Gifts Gift giving practices vary from industry to industry, but an appropriate gift is a great way to say thank you and can help solidify a relationship between customer and provider. The operative word is “appropriate”. Appropriate gift giving has these key elements: 1. The gift is well timed. 2. The
Email Marketing How to Write Great E-mails E-mails dominate B2B communication. E-mail volume dwarfs that of the telephone, fax, and direct mailer. If you are like me, you are getting dozens if not hundreds of e-mail messages a day; most are spam and are deleted. The rest are scanned or put aside to be read later. The
Selling Handling Difficult or Angry People on the Phone If you deal with difficult or angry customers on the phone, you know that the biggest problem is that they tend to go on and on, don't listen, and dominate the conversation, which means you can't get a word in edgewise. This consumes lots of time,
Sales Management Is Selling Getting Tougher? I get this question a lot from sales veterans who remember what selling was like before the Internet. My answer is that things are different with some aspects of selling harder and other parts easier. The biggest change in selling is the rise of the better informed buyer. Prior to
Ethics Selling With Integrity Marketing campaigns, sales quotas, and sales awards are soon forgotten. Yet, your reputation seems everlasting---it is the essence of what others remember about you. How will you be remembered? Mark Twain said, “If you tell the truth you won’t have to remember anything”. This adage makes sense to me.
Sales Management Selling is More Checkers Than Chess The business trade press has published volumes about how selling requires intense strategy and calculated thinking. I think this is mostly hogwash. Stop trying to out-think your customers. Instead, try to understand the customers’ wants and needs---then act accordingly. Selling is a lot more like checkers than chess. Being understood
Sales Management Selling on the Phone Selling on the phone can be drudgery, but this is how the money is made in sales. It all starts with a phone call. Whether you are a full-time telemarketer or CEO selling the company’s vision, the telephone is the most potent tool in the sales tool bag. Here
Sales Management Why Customers Buy “Different isn’t always better, but better is always different.” * Marshall Thurber, entrepreneur I like this quote because it sums up my thinking about how customers will buy an offering because of its differences and not because it is similar to another offering. This is true even if the offering
Branding Trust and Selling Would you buy something from someone whom you don’t trust? Most people won’t. Studies have shown that lack of trust may disable a sale more quickly than any other factor. So, what is trust? I define it as the feeling you get from someone that what they say
Public Speaking Conquering the Fear of Rejection The single greatest cause of sales “failure” is the fear of rejection--- that creeping feeling that customers will tell you “no”. It can be so paralyzing that rookie and veteran sales people will go to great lengths to avoid that word. This fear disables you from cold calling, closing, and
Sales Management It Pays To Be Optimistic Western culture is overwhelmingly pessimistic. Just turn on CNN or the local news and you will be bombarded with bad news---home foreclosures, inflation fears, Iraq, crime, and much more. Most advertising is negative---have you seen the political campaign ads? Studies have shown that 7 out of 10 people are pessimistic
Sales Management Smile While Selling on the Phone People can “hear” you smile when you talk with them on the phone. A recent study confirmed that you sound different or better when you smile. Smiling affects how we speak. Listeners can actually detect your smile based on sound alone according to a new study by the University of
New Product Development Marketing Innovative Products Innovative products need to be marketed and sold differently than other offerings since they require a special customer who is receptive to innovation. Most customers are skeptical and will wait until innovative products are mass marketed. Here are a few suggestions on how to market innovative products: • Not everyone will
Sales Management Setting Sales Goals for 2008 Study after study shows that people who set goals accomplish more, achieve greater success, and accumulate greater wealth than people who don't. Read on if you agree. Setting your sales goals for 2008 should begin with a review of how you did in 2007. Did you achieve your
Ethics Expressing Gratitude in a Thankless World It seems that we live in a thankless world and this void seems most pronounced in day-to-day business. The ever increasing pace of commerce in the new millennium seems to leave little time for a thank you or even common courtesy. Global competitiveness seems to have sapped us of empathy