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- The Customer-Driven Sales Process
- As explained in my previous post, traditional vendor-centric sales processes are ineffective because they don’t reflect the way that customers want to buy. As such, they can get in the way of a sale as many times as they help move the sale forward. The...
- Blog posts 2007-04-06
- How To Negotiate Final Terms
- Q: When is a close not a close? A: When there’s still some negotiating to be done. Theoretically, a close means a handshake and a done deal, but in practice, a close often signals an intent to buy -- providing you can work out the final terms. ...
- Blog posts 2007-05-04
- Effective Questioning
- I recently had a conversation about effective sales calls with Wayne Turmel, manager of instruction for the sales training firm Communispond. He says that the best way to move a sales call forward is to ask questions that draw the customer into the sales process. Here are some...
- Blog posts 2007-03-27
- Avoiding "Death by PowerPoint"
- Let’s talk about sales presentations. In the corporate world, everybody presents. And almost everybody sucks at it. The standard behavior is to display dozens of slides crammed with as many bullets as possible, and then to read each bullet aloud as if the audience were illiterate. ...
- Blog posts 2007-02-16
- Sales Process vs. Buying Process
- In my previous post, I lambasted the structure of the traditional “vendor-centric” sales process. Don’t get me wrong. Most of the time ANY process is better than NO process, especially for novices who don’t always know what to do next. However, traditional sales processes fall woefully short...
- Blog posts 2007-04-02
- Building Rapport in Retail
- It’s a truism that people prefer to buy from people they like. That’s why sales pros who are good rapport builders tend outsell those who are more reserved. In Business-to-Business (B2B) sales, you generally have at least the entire sales call and maybe multiple calls...
- Blog posts 2007-03-12
- Sales Call Horror Stories
- I was on a phone meeting with a client yesterday, negotiating a fairly important contract. Right at the end of the meeting, which had gone very well, I did something really dumb, and offered a discount after I had already closed the deal. Not only was...
- Blog posts 2007-03-07
- Answering Objections 102
- In a previous post, I explained the classic “artful dodge” method for answering objections. That always runs the risk of irritating the customers, so here’s a less dodgy approach. This one is particularly useful for vague objections like “I’d like to think it over.” TECHNIQUE #2:...
- Blog posts 2007-03-14
- Running a Hospital like a Car Factory
- Say you run a large medical center with 480 physicians on staff, and you want to upgrade your operations to eliminate inefficiencies. Where would you turn for inspiration? Seattle's Virginia Mason Medical Center looked to Toyota's production system to cure its ailments. It may seem like an odd choice for...
- Blog posts 2007-03-19
- The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business, Fourth Edition
- The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business is a one-stop resource for burgeoning entrepreneurs. Learn what it takes to set up a new business. Experienced entrepreneur Edward Paulson offers step-by-step instructions on how to draft a business plan that allows you to attract customers, assess the competition, and...
- Research articles 2005-03-01
- There’s Nothing Else Like It In The World
- Bespoke design is expanding to jewelry, vehicles, even doghouses. The latest ‘it’ bag is the ‘me’ bag. In 1926, Jagatjit Singh, the Maharajah of Kapurthala— A kingdom known as the Paris of Punjab—commissioned the house of Cartier to create an emerald tiara, the centerpiece of which was a 177-carat...
- Research articles 2008-05-26
- Deb Shops’ August sales down 4.5% to $30.2 million
- With a slowing economy dampening back-to-school buying sprees, Deb Shops Inc., said today that its August sales declined 4.5 percent to $30.2 million compared with the same month a year earlier. Rising gas prices and interest rates are hurting Deb's core customer, women in their teens and early 20s from...
- Research articles 2006-09-07
- Is Your Sales Process Obsolete?
- There’s a revolution going on in the field of sales process, and you need to know about it, because the companies that are in the vanguard are about to kick the living daylights out of firms clinging to the same old, same old. ...
- Blog posts 2007-03-30
- The Art of Dodging Objections
- Most sales pros hate objections. When you think you’re doing a good job presenting, the last thing you want to hear is “I want to think it over” or “I heard your service department sucks” or the myriad of other reasons prospects give when they’re leery of buying....
- Blog posts 2007-03-09
- How Do YOU Define Selling?
- In my previous post, I lambasted trick closes like “buy now and Ill give you 15 percent off.” I knew that post would be controversial because I was well aware that some sales pros swear by trick closes – and use them on a daily basis. To...
- Blog posts 2007-02-28
- How to Earn Referrals
- I’m going to make your job a lot easier today. Every sales pro knows that referrals make for easier sales. How easy? Research shows that well over half of the opportunities that come from referrals end up as a sale, according to Joanne Black, author of No More...
- Blog posts 2007-03-01
- The ABCs of Closing
- The motto for this blog is the old “ABC” adage: “Always Be Closing.” That’s great advice, but only if you understand that closing isn’t a technique to trick a customer into buying but the point in the conversation when you ask for a decision. If you take “ABC”...
- Blog posts 2007-02-26
- The Key to Demand Creation
- My previous post slammed marketing for using too many buzzwords – and received several comments to the effect that market materials should emphasize “benefits.” That sounds like Marketing 101, but it’s also dead wrong. In fact, there’s only one type of marketing message that gets through to prospects,...
- Blog posts 2007-02-22
- Why Cold Pitches Don't Work
- One of the comments on my previous post, “The Art of the Cold Call Pitch”, suggests that during the cold call you should “ask if it is a good time to talk” and only ask for an appointment if the answer is “No.” That’s a great idea --...
- Blog posts 2007-02-09
- Five Reasons CRM Stinks
- Don’t get me wrong. I like technology as much as the next guy, but I’ve been writing about – and hearing complaints about – Customer Relationship Management CRM for the past five years and have come to the conclusion that this is one technology thats got a lot...
- Blog posts 2007-03-16
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