Sales Articles

What Maslow’s hierarchy of needs teaches us about selling

To thrive the salesperson must make the discussion, not about the lowest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in selling, but the levels above it. And the levels above it are all emotional. The progressive salesperson plays in this emotional space. The Chairman of a renowned multinational manufacturing concern once startled his staff when he

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Entrepreneurs are not the best salespeople of their own product or service

Entrepreneurs are not salespeople. To begin with, have you ever noticed how casually dressed a top notch tailor is? Or how worn a cobbler’s shoes are? Or, how the best performing salesperson is rarely the best sales manager? Such is life and it is not for us to judge it but only to learn from

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Why organizations shoot themselves in the foot in their quest to have a sales culture

The typical pyramidal organizational structure does not favour the sales orientation many organizations say they want. So these organizations shoot themselves in the foot. We shall look at two scenarios, starting with the first today and the other next week. To begin with is the organization that chooses to have a specialized sales force. Everybody

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Making salespeople into CEOs might not help firms

Stellar salespeople struggle as CEOs. Leadership calls for a “generalist”. A salesperson is a specialist, which is a narrow approach to leadership In the past couple of weeks, acres of editorial space globally have been assigned the transition at the helm of Microsoft. Finally, a Satya Nadella took over as captain from Steve Ballmer. According

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What winning salespeople and firms have in common

I was recently invited to a sales achievement awards ceremony and a few things stood out for me. The most prominent one (selling ethically) was the topic of last week’s column. Today we focus on the other five on what winning salespeople and firms share. To begin with, the event was held at a prestigious

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Sell ethically for sustainable business and commissions

To begin with, I was recently invited to a sales achievement awards ceremony and five things stood out for me. Today I share one. Sell ethically for sustainability. Next week. I’ll share the rest. Now. Like in any other awards ceremony, there were different categories. The one that I found of greatest interest is the

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Shrewd salespeople don’t play by rules but still close

Shrewd salespeople don’t play by the rules. While the bank insists that all documentation must be in order before an account is opened, the salesperson gets all the documentation and has account opened but not necessarily in that order. The order is dependent on the situation at hand. Like a soldier, he adapts Successful salespeople

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Caught in time warp? World of outdated calendar, diary beckons

What happened to the calendar and diary? Was it caught in a time warp? Like me, you have possibly witnessed a steady decline of the two with every passing January. To a point this year, when I’m almost at zero sightings. There was a time when the two were all the rage. The transition to

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