Starbucks card brings sales reward caught my eye first because I have a tremendous coffee addiction and read almost any article I find regarding coffee shops. Second, there is an amazing statistic inside of the article: Most major retailers have been offering gift and loyalty cards for years, but industry observers say few have seen so many of their customers hang on to them as long, use them as often and reload them as regularly as they do at Starbucks. Almost one in eight customers pays with a Starbucks card these days, Stark noted. About 96 million Starbucks cards have been activated in the United States and Canada since November… Read More
Continue ReadingIf You’re Talking, You’re Not Selling
We seem to have a theme today regarding underhanded hiring schemes. Now CareerJournal offers this beauty – When They Don’t Hire You, But Steal Your Ideas. Clearly this article focuses on marketing positions, but it does have a sales side to it also. Why in the world would you do this?: While jobless in spring 2004, the Cleveland resident pursued a middle-management position at an Ohio insurer. The concern asked him to create a marketing strategy focused on its independent field agents. He spent about 50 hours drafting a 25-page plan, then presented his detailed proposal to 20 officials over two days.He didn’t get the job. Mr. Gaglione soon found… Read More
Continue ReadingNo Email Fridays
I am an email junkie so I wasn’t aware of any “problems” until I read this BusinessWeek article – *!#@ The E-Mail. Can We Talk? The problem isn’t the distraction of spam or stuffed inboxes. Nor is it the potential for legal liability. The concern, say academics and management thinkers, is misinterpreted messages, as well as the degree to which e-mail has become a substitute for the nuanced conversations that are critical in the workplace. I think almost all of us have experienced the misinterpreted email issue. I have sent them and ignited a thermonuclear response and I have received what was supposed to be an innocuous email and found… Read More
Continue ReadingPowerPoint Muggings
I must fall in the masochistic side of PowerPoint – I actually enjoy PowerPoint presentations. CareerJournal offers this article – Tips for PowerPoint — Please Spare Us – which comments on many pet peeves regarding Microsoft’s presentation software. Despite the barbs: …there are an estimated 30 million PowerPoint presentations given each day around the world… Some times I think people prefer to simply be contrarians to the status quo. 30 million presentations can’t be wrong, can they? PowerPoint proponents say slideware doesn’t bore people, people bore people. Oh do I agree with that statement. I wouldn’t castigate the program just because some people use it poorly. I have sat through… Read More
Continue ReadingGo For No
We are fans of Jeff Thull’s approach to selling as we commented in a post from this past summer. Now Thull has a new article in the latest SMT enewsletter – The Science and Art of Go For The No Selling. I recommend you read the entire article, but here are some excerpts: Probably the most debilitating myth ever perpetuated on the world of selling is: A good salesperson can sell anything to anybody. But those of us pursuing a complex sale should be taking the opposite approach. Provocative you say? The reasoning: Selling has become such a complex process that if you don’t consider “no sale” as a valid… Read More
Continue ReadingTop 10 Tips for Prospecting Success
As you know, we are intrigued by lists and statistics and I came across this article in Sales Vault’s current newsletter. It is a quick read and I recommend that you read all 10 tips. To give you a taste of what you will learn: 5. Schedule your prospecting sessions for 3½ hours. Take a fifteen-minute break between each hour. That is more productive than five prospecting sessions of one hour each. Very interesting thought. If you are like most salespeople, being able to reduce the amount of time you need to spend on prospecting sounds most appealing. 7. Always be in a “Disqualification” mode. Be determined to spend your… Read More
Continue ReadingSelling Power Daily Video – 2
As I stated in my previous post I would keep you updated as to the effectiveness usefulness of Selling Power’s daily video clip. I have been watching them off and on the past couple of weeks and each time I find a usable tidbit in them. For instance, today Gerhard Gschwandtner is interviewing John Roberts – CEO Sugar CRM. As you would expect, the interview is on the effectiveness of CRMs. The one point that I pulled out of today’s clip is on what John Roberts sees as the biggest reason for CRM failure is user adoption. His clear point – quality of CRM training drives user adoption up. A… Read More
Continue ReadingAnecdote – How Are You?
Ok, I thought I would offer an anecdote from earlier this week. One of our customers has an unrefined sales rep who works hard but lacks many skills. He had a customer make a design change to a part that was going to cause an 18% increase in the price of the salesperson’s service. His call to the customer to announce this news: “Hello customer, how are you today? Wait, I shouldn’t ask you that until I tell you that our price is going to increase 18%. I am sure our competitor will be able to be well under that price if you have them quote it. Now how are… Read More
Continue ReadingSelling Power Daily Video
I received an email over the weekend from Selling Power inviting me to watch a new series they are launching. It is a daily video clip roughly 5 minutes in length with Gerhard Gschwandtner. Here are the selling points they used to hook me: You are invited to watch my new Selling Power Daily Report, a series of online videos. – Watch for less than five minutes a day – Enjoy insightful interviews with top thought leaders – Get bright ideas to implement every day – Learn new business solutions every day of the week – The reports are FREE for the month of October 2006 I went to check… Read More
Continue ReadingIt’s All About the Questions
Here’s a Monday morning thought: There are many facets to successful selling, but none of greater importance than asking the right questions. Think about this, there is nothing prospects like to hear more than their own voice. They have good reason for this – they believe the salesperson is there to talk them into buying something. A fair assumption for sure. The best approach for a salesperson then is to ask the right questions and let the prospect talk. Two critical items underscore this approach. First, the person asking the questions is in control of the conversation. They can direct the topics which leads to the second critical item. The… Read More
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