Dear business owner, If you’re selling on annual contracts, the measure of sales success is in your renewal rate. Managing the relationship between renewals is indispensable if you are to keep your business afloat. Customer retention – not acquisition...
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If you are going to thrive in selling, you must be prepared to do other people’s work. “Other people” here includes customers and colleagues —and anyone else whose inaction could stand between you and the sale. Before you object,...
“What went wrong?” That’s the question I debrief my team with after every customer engagement. It’s how we review what happened in the previous meeting, with the intention of improving the next. This is what a small business owner...
Your competitor isn’t always beating you because they have a better product. Often, they have a better sales offering. Sometimes they respond faster. Explain better. Follow up consistently. Make buying easier. Remove friction. Keep their promises. Or they do...
If you just accept what the customer says you aren’t adding value. Challenge the customer. Push back. Respectfully. Let’s unpack that. Challenge the customer: being agreeable isn’t the same as being useful “I want a drill.” “Sure, here.” “Jaza...
“I don’t want to see you! Your colleague lied to me. You are all liars!” The executive was fuming. How dare the company send another salesperson after he had told them off about being lied to by the first?...
An account-winning pitch takes time to bake. And sales pitch practice is what gets it there. As with every new skill, even the seasoned salesperson will struggle with a pitch – for a similar product or service he must...
Anybody can ask a question. But to thrive in selling requires one to ask insightful questions. Insightful questions don’t merely yield knowledge – they shed revelation by eliciting a protracted response. The importance of asking insightful questions in selling...
Customers don’t know what they want. It is a sad truth, rarely verbalized. So treat customers like patients. Help treat their pain through insightful questions, thought through before the meeting Customers are like patients. Sell to them like a...
When you have a customer ‘cornered’, instead of thumping your chest for outing him, give him an out instead. Maintain customer dignity. Even if he’s wrong, he’s still right. I learnt from a security expert that riot police have...