The Perfect Stall

Our local Pioneer Press offers an article about HD radio which intrigues me.  There are some interesting developments in the technology.  One of them is this: More important, the radios have an iTunes tagging feature, developed with Apple’s help and being tested in the San Francisco Bay area. This means users can press a button to tag songs they like, save that information to their docked iPods, and later transfer this info to their iTunes software on their computers. They then can buy the songs on Apple’s music store. That is a fantastic idea.  However, I truly enjoyed this perfect stall that comes later in the article: “We’re definitely taking… Read More

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Selling Is Not Telling

Conventional Wisdom = The best talkers make the best salespeople. If I could rewrite that to make it accurate, I would state it like this:  The best questioners make the best salespeople. Yes, I know that is oversimplifying things, but it is an attempt at rewriting conventional wisdom.  The key takeaway is that the person asking the questions is in control of the conversation even though they are not doing the majority of the talking.  This is a fundamental principle in sales that often gets ignored, overlooked or worse. In that light comes an excellent article from the weekly Salesopedia newsletter: Initially you need to ask questions to uncover whether… Read More

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The Toughest Topic To Qualify-Money

It’s not really when you know how to do it.  Unfortunately, many salespeople have a distinct weakness when it comes to even broaching this topic with a prospect.  This weakness leads to compounded expenses in that the salesperson will typically invest time and resources on a prospect who will disappear at the first discussion of price.  Many salespeople are aware of this fact so they deem it best to avoid the money topic all together with the hope they can persuade the prospect with an extended dog-and-pony show. The entire sordid affair feeds upon itself. The costs here can be enormous.  I’m of the belief that a salesperson’s greatest asset… Read More

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