2 Habits That Undermine Salespeople

Supposition – something that is supposed; assumption; hypothesis Think of supposition, in sales parlance, as being synonymous with stereotyping.  This is a dangerous approach to sale in that once you start making assumptions, you start derailing your qualifying skills.  In most prospect situations, once you stop truly qualifying you are headed towards prospects that are welded on your forecast 90 days out.  Eternally. Proposition – the act of offering or suggesting something to be considered, accepted, adopted, or done I suspect you are thinking of value proposition which makes sense.  I read an interesting post that turned that term upside down.  The author suggested selling to the customer’s value expectations… Read More

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Impression Management

I am a psych major.  As my mother likes to say, “I’ve never met a psychologist who didn’t need their own services.”  Although I am not a psychologist, I get the gist of her commentary. In that vein, I was revisiting some of my antiquated text books in search of a professional explanation for why “bad” sales candidates can often smoke good interviewers.  I give you self-presentation or impression management.  The definition from Social Psychology-Understanding Human Interaction by Baron and Byrne: …they flatter others, pretend to agree with them about various issues, or feign great interest in what they are saying – all in an attempt to create a favorable… Read More

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Mediocrity In The Hiring Process

Hiring salespeople is the difficult combination of science and art weighted perfectly to select the right person for the position’s requirements.  Obviously, knowing the position’s requirements is the preeminent step.  Many sales managers believe they know what it takes to be successful in the position and they do to a certain extent.  Yet, their knowledge often consists of themes as opposed to specifics.  This reason drives us to profile the sale as the very first step in our sales hiring process. ManageSmarter.com’s Is Hiring Mediocre Good Enough? approaches a hiring process with some valuable insight and other items I wouldn’t recommend.  First, the reason astute hiring is mission-critical to corporate… Read More

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