“Getting in early with the customer means being proactive, not reactive; generous, not selfish; relational, not transactional. It also propels your career and usefulness.” I’m told that by 4.30am you will find owners of business on the road with traffic nowhere in their sights, nor thoughts. By 5.30 am, MDs have driven to work, traffic
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Fighting to be in a scoring position will mean letting go of sales sometimes. Which is fine if that was the only way to assist the buyer get what he needs. “Always fight to be in a scoring position.” So, a Director of Business Development reader friend of mine used to tell the players of
“When I first heard about the cloud, I thought the information was held somewhere in the skies.” I was told this by the CEO of a thriving I.T solutions firm. If you know what ‘the cloud’ in computer terminology means, you must be laughing. Don’t! That’s how you lose sales. By assuming buyers know, and
How to eliminate jargon when selling, jargon, Relationships, Simplicity, Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
Communication breakdown, Human Interaction, Relationship Building
“You can’t sell to everyone, and because you must sell to someone, you don’t want to pick anyone. Prospecting remains the most important step in sales. All others cannot manifest if there’s no one to work them on.” So, forget closing the sale; just get the appointment. What is the most important skill in selling?
“Research and explore to get close to the need with the focus of a rifle than hope for the best with the pellets from a shotgun” The umbrellas are on sale in the streets. With the chronic blackouts lately, lanterns and emergency lights are too. Hawkers seem to always have just what you need. And
It is the consummate seller who is able to resist the urge to volunteer (unnecessary) details of what the product can do. A business to business sale many times requires the presentation to be done across different cadre before it is consummated. Few sellers do this. Many, for lack of trying; others for lack of
How to sell to the C-Suite, Professionals and Lay employeees, Targeting my presentation, Tweaking presentation to different cadre
Trapped between charity and commerce, charitable organizations strive to embrace a quasi-commercial outlook. Therefore, it is imperative for their salespeople to morph at a faster rate. When the dire credit crunch happened in the West a few years back, many charitable organizations were forced to interrogate how they do business. Before, donor money would flow,
Donor funding in Kenya, Donor funding in Third World, Effects of the Credit Crunch in NGO World, NGOs in Kenya
To thrive, sellers must take debt collection in stride. Or would they rather Finance does? If the ultimate objective of sales is to generate income, then debt collection is in itself a salesman. A reader friend of mine told me of an interesting experience he had a few years back. When he joined this firm
Is debt collection the Salesperson job?, Non Performing Loans (NPLs) in Kenyan Banks, Why salespeople don't like collecting debt
How do you get to speak in the language that connects with the buyer? By asking, “So?”. Virtually all in-house sales training busy themselves with product knowledge. So if I’m selling waste-water treatment equipment, my in-house training will focus on the types of plants we have, their specifications, what they can do and how they
Today, we address the ways how to successfully close a sale borrowing from everyday experiences.Closing a sale in business, is getting commitment to to buy. The importance of closing the sale cannot be gainsaid. It’s the whole purpose of selling. Not closing the sale is like playing football and not scoring. Here’s how you close