Sales Articles

Sell the pain before you sell the cure—the sequence that wins

Sell yourself and sell the problem, before you sell the solution. Notice and nurture that sequence. If the customer doesn’t buy you, he won’t the product you are selling. By the same token, if the customer doesn’t feel his pain, he’ll never appreciate your cure. So, sell the pain first. Why most salespeople get the

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The “let me think it over” trap: why it’s a red flag, not a green light

A “let me think it over” likely means you didn’t close the gap between their problem and your solution. Go back. “That’s ok. To help you do so, let’s review the main points we discussed.“ This simple action serves two purposes: It helps you retrace your steps and pick the ball where you inadvertently dropped

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Fix generational differences at your workplace hurting your sales

There’s an ongoing generational tension in the workplace—and it is quietly eroding sales performance. It’s not about budgets, targets, or markets—it’s about how we sell. The friction between digital natives and digital immigrants is no longer a soft-skills sideshow; it is directly impacting sales cycle velocity, pipeline health, and closing rates. The hidden cost of

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Business is not sales, sales is not business – and why this matters

Sales is business but business is not sales. A business needs sales to survive; in fact, that is its very reason for existence —to sell. But. That does not make sales the business. The tension that hurts companies most This tension between sales logic (what closes sales now) and business logic (what sustains the firm

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Why cheap products are the hardest to sell — and cost you more

Counterintuitive as it may sound, cheap products are the hardest to sell — for both businesses and their salespeople. The assumption that “lower price equals easier sale” is a dangerous myth. Salespeople who blame price for poor results will be surprised to know they’re not entirely valid. And businesses that focus on being the cheapest

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Toxic customers are not just difficult. They are corrosive. Fire them.

Toxic customers come in many forms. This one punctuated every sentence with the f-word while liberally sprinkling its older profane siblings. Customer facing staff at the bank would cower the moment he walked into the branch. Each of his foreign exchange accounts were funded in the tens of thousands at any one time. This particular

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Why are you struggling to sell a product that sells itself? Try this

Why would you struggle to sell when your product lends itself to repeat sales? There are products that sell themselves – or should. Products like pet food let the seller sell repeatedly throughout the lifetime of the pet, creating enormous lifetime customer value. Think about that for a moment: if you are selling dog food,

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Why relationship management in customer service wins you sales

Relationship management in customer service begins with the realization that you need the customer more than he needs you —especially at the very moment it feels like you have the upper hand. I am not blind to the fact no-one wants to talk much about – that toxic customers exist. And this is not about

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Effective sales language: why losing a sale is better than mis-selling a product

You would rather lose the sale for lack of sales knowledge than product knowledge. This simple truth is at the heart of effective sales language. Product knowledge alone does not sell. True. This speaks to the inability of translating product features into customer benefits. Sales knowledge that is not informed by product knowledge runs the

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Sales value clarity: why you can’t outsell a weak value proposition

Sales value clarity is the difference between pushing a sale and earning one. Without sales value clarity, even the best product sounds ordinary and forgettable. If you need extreme persuasion, your offer is either unclear or simply not compelling enough. You can’t outsell a weak value proposition. A value proposition is your response to the

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