If you don’t measure it, it won’t happen. If you don’t measure sales performance, it won’t happen. And if you don’t measure process, choosing to measure results instead, good luck! Measuring process is King, measuring results is vanity. Believe it or not there are institutions that don’t measure sales processes. They measure results. Even I
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Salespeople take risks. Scratch that. Successful sales people take risks. Mediocre ones colour within the lines. And their (mediocre) results show it. If you are recruiting for a sales person, capacity to take risks should be high on your checklist. If you are recruiting compliance officers, then acting in accordance with set rules it is.
“But we’ve never heard of you, customers keep saying. We could sell more if only Marketing did their job.” Not an uncommon accusation from sales people. Today, I’d like us to look at some sales problems marketing gets blamed for-unfairly. In fact, some problems are simply objections that need handling. They don’t know about us
Insist on face-to-face sales meeting. At the meeting, dialogue, listen, take notes. Get to the nub of the issue. Then consensually agree on way forward. After all, even in a pandemic, we are still social creatures. This piece of advice should be Holy Grail for two sellers. The business to business (B2B) one for whom
To what extent does the product service mix, or service product, mix affect your selling? You see, your product attracts your prospect, but your service retains your customer. A majority of products carry with them an element of service but in varied degrees. The hospitality industry, for instance, has a heavy dose of both. Take
Ask for sales referrals. Prospects don’t volunteer them unsolicited. A sales referral is perhaps the most powerful weapon in a sales person’s arsenal. A sales referral happens when an existing customer or prospect gives the name (that is, refers) of another potential buyer, to the sales person. This means that asking for referrals is a
If they don’t buy you, they won’t buy what you are selling. You are as much a product as the one you are selling. So sell yourself first. One day, I asked my plumber to refer me to an electrician and he did. Only problem is the fellow arrived smelling body odour. And when he
Ask. Just ask for the sale. Ask for the meeting. Ask for the cheque. Even ask for the referral. Ask. Just ask. And be specific when asking. It is tragic that many sales fail simply because the sales person did not ask. He did not ask the right questions, or worse, did not ask for
Differentiating yourself on price is a race for the bottom. Who hits bottom first, wins. And be dammed the cost. All else lose. Differentiating yourself by ethically selling doubt is more productive. But how to sell doubt, you wonder? Well, read on. First off, doubt triggers pause. Doubt triggers introspection. Doubt triggers attention. And all
Convert internal training to customer understanding to thrive in selling. Why? Because, unfortunately, internal professional sales trainings programs, are company, not customer, focused. They focus inward, not outward. They focus on the science of the product, not art of selling it. Companies engage in sales training to empower their front line. If only companies knew