It is hard not to trust Dan Seidman when you learn his is the founder of SalesAutopsy.com. Selling Power has an article titled DQ and Move On which highlights some of Seidman’s approach. I am not familiar with his work, but his advice is spot on. If I could have only one skill in a salesperson, it would be qualifying. It is the backbone of sales success. Every other stage hinges upon strong qualifying. Seidman hits on an absolute truth (my emphasis): When reps don’t qualify well, they spend too much time in front of prospects who aren’t ready or able to buy and that has a direct effect on… Read More
Continue ReadingThe One Piece Of Advice You Can’t Sell Without
I came across a new sales blog, RainToday.com. They are offering a free e-book to download titled The One Piece Of Advice You Can’t Sell Without that caught my eye and I encourage you to go download it. Rain Today says this about the free e-book: We’ve read a lot of advice about selling professional services, and there are a lot of people who claim to know it all. But when you boil it all down what’s really important? What do you need to know? To answer this question, we asked 11 experts in selling professional services: What is the one piece of advice you simply cannot sell without? This… Read More
Continue ReadingOutsourcing Your Sales Dept.
Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power released an editorial titled Should You Outsource Your Sales Force? He starts right off with a statistic I have not heard: A few years ago, outsourcing a sales force was a novelty. Today it has become a trend that enjoys a 20% annual growth rate. I’ve always been a skeptic of this approach mainly due to my sales background. I cannot wrap my simple mind around the idea of a person from another company owning the relationship with the customer. Leveraging a better ROI is one thing, placing a degree of separation from your customer (read: revenue) base seems like Russian roulette. What if you… Read More
Continue ReadingDoes Six Sigma Have a Place in Sales?
An article on Six Sigma in Selling Power’s newsletter caught my interest. We are all quite familiar with Six Sigma in manufacturing and engineering, but Six Sigma and sales? It seems a little far fetched. The article is based on Michael Webb’s (founder of Sales Performance Consultants) sales process which is broken down into 5 steps. Webb contends that Six Sigma “applies science to the art of sales to consistently improve results.” The 5 steps are: Step #1: Define Step #2: Measure Step #3: Analyze Step #4: Improve Step #5: Control Interesting. There was a link to his website so naturally I clicked on it and poked around a bit.… Read More
Continue ReadingTop 50 Sales Websites
Selling Power’s September issue has a compilation of the Top 50 Sales Websites. They have it broken down into the following categories; Sales Training, Lead Management, Sales Meetings, CRM, Sales Technology and Hiring & Testing. It’s a great resource for anyone in sales to add to their tool box. Selling Power provides the website, a link to get to their site and a quick summary of the service they provide. However, the thoroughness of their list must be called into question. Select Metrix did not make the list. Hopefully they will have this oversight corrected by next year. 😉
Continue ReadingSalespeople Who Can’t Discuss Money
Another CareerJournal article – When It Comes to Job Offers,It Pays to Ask for More Money – that discusses strategies for negotiating pay in the interview process. The short article has good suggestions for candidates but I want to take a myopic view of the article for sales candidates. First, from the article (my emphasis): CareerBuilder.com’s survey of 875 hiring managers revealed that about 60% leave room in the first offer for salary negotiations, 30% say their first offer is final, and 10% say it depends on the candidate. Meanwhile, four out of five corporate recruiters said they are willing to negotiate compensation, according to a study conducted by the… Read More
Continue ReadingDesperado
I’ve said it before, desperation is a tough sell. I received an email last night from a company that I have not contacted directly. I used their free service one time 3 months ago. Now the desperate-sounding rep sent me an email pushing for business. See if you can spot his approach (I removed some names): We are currently at the end of another month and I promised to catch up with you to let you know about Month End incentives, pricing discounts and free services. Forget what you know about company’s pricing as it stands now. We have lowered all prices on all services and even lowered minimum commits… Read More
Continue ReadingFuzzy Phrases
I came across an interesting article on fuzzy phrases in this week’s newsletter from Sales Vault and it is well worth the time to read. The author’s definition of a fuzzy phrase is something that really says nothing. You feel like you might have heard something of substance, but after analysis (usually after the call is over) you realize they just said nothing. They are his pet peeve as I am sure they are for all sales people. His suggestion is to ask for clarification. When you hear any statement that is vague or wishy-washy, ask for clarification. If it’s something that needs to be done or discussed, I’ll always… Read More
Continue ReadingSelling to Women
I’m catching up on some reading and came across Selling Power’s recent Sales Management Newsletter which had this article, If You Sell to Women, You Better Clear the Clutter. Some interesting information about selling to women. According to a cruise ship survey women could recall details as small as the design on the rugs and the subject matter of each painting on the walls. In contrast, most men couldn’t even remember the color of those walls. Women account for more than 80 percent of all purchases in the U.S., $3.7 trillion as consumers and $1.5 trillion as business owners. And third and foremost in my mind was the authors final… Read More
Continue ReadingKnow Your Competition
Just over 10 years ago, I was a Regional Sales Manager for a high-tech company in a competitive market. There were 5 major players in this market and each of us incorporated different technology in our capital equipment. The Internet was a fledgling concept in the business world at the time. We needed to know what our competition was developing since they all had different technology. We had admin people call in to our competitors, pretend that they were prospects and request information packets. Our competitors obliged. We then passed the information around to the team and filed it in a huge lateral file for future reference. Outside of trade… Read More
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