I was recently talking to Terri Sjodin, author of the bestseller New Sales Speak: The 9 Biggest Sales Presentation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them (Wiley 2006). Smart lady. She pointed out that a B2B sales presentation isn't persuasive (meaning it won't drive buying behavior) unless it...
If you want a great referral, you must ask somebody who already trusts you. This seems obvious, but you'd be amazed at how many times sales pros ask for referrals right after making their first sale - even though they haven't yet proven that they can deliver...
It's been said repeatedly that B2B sales is all about relationships. However, relationships are difficult to forge when you're cold-calling people who don't know you from Adam. The best way to get into a customer account is through a personal referral. Please note that a...
We remember sitting in a sixth-grade classroom on January 28, 1986, watching the catastrophic events of the clear, crisp morning near Cape Canaveral, Florida unfold on a large television screen. What many saw and remember as the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, barely on its way to the Earth's...
Some businesses do not sell anything at all online. They use their Web site to collect leads and enhance the functioning of the sales cycle. Businesses like this are often corporations that specialize in business-to-business sales and consulting. They do not actually sell anything on their Web site, so like...
Sales pressure is a mighty saboteur. And it comes in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. Beginning any conversation with the anticipation of a sale puts the whole conversation under pressure. This doesn't normally create good outcomes. It usually triggers pressure, resistance, and tension. People have received so many calls with...
Trade shows are a great way to demonstrate how your product or service works. It is also a great place where trade enquiries can be generated. More than that, it is also a venue where there can be instant follow-up as you have a potential customer right there as a...
Every good potential lender or investor, be they bank, angel investor, venture capitalist or business partner, will require a business plan. They want to be comfortable that you have thought long and hard about your business rather than jumping straight into a business. More importantly they want to ensure that...
Today, manually creating quotes and contracts inside your Salesforce.com system can slow down your sales cycle if you rely on nothing more than copying and pasting contact information, pricing, opportunity data and product information for every deal. Learn how to save time in your sales cycle and generate more revenue...
Product management is typically thankless. A Product Manager PM is the first one called when there is a problem. When it is time to recognize team contributions, the PM usually does the recognizing and most people assume the PM is vicariously rewarded for his or her efforts. The PM is...
Sales forces expect sales guides to arm them with information they need to confidently sell the company's solution, including ways to handle the competition. Yet some sales guides gloss over the competition, or provide weak competitive positioning. This not only harms chances of closing deals, but also undermines the marketing...
No sales presentation will be successful without aligning your sales and marketing organizations. With such goal-oriented cooperation in place, you can help your sales representatives succeed by providing them with a customer-centric message that clearly explains how your solution solves the prospect's business issues. Ultimately, by managing the messages in...
A telephone can be a powerful sales tool in the right hands. It can be used to generate leads, qualify prospects, and support the field sales force. To be effective, it’s essential to prepare for the call, target the right prospects, and plan a structured but flexible script. What...
Selling is emotional heavy lifting. Everything from cold calling to closing requires the ability to get motivated and to perform at your best. Not surprisingly, there are hundreds of motivational gurus and authors who promise to help. One of my personal favorites is Omar Periu,...
Myth: Every sale has a single, all-important point where the deal closes. Truth: Some extremely simple sales processes have a defined close point, but complex sales processes (i.e. almost all B2B sales) have a series of points where the prospect makes a decision, even if it's just...
Keith Rosen, author of "The Complete Idiots Guide to Closing a Sale," shows how permission-based prospecting can increase your chances of moving a cold call forward to the next step.
I recently wrote that "selling is like sex; until you've actually done it, you can't possibly understand what the fuss is all about." On second thought, that's wrong. Selling is not like sex... it's better than sex. Here's why: You usually have a pretty good idea of...
The beliefs that drive your sales behaviors are the keys to becoming a successful sales pro. Change the beliefs, and you'll change the behaviors and get better results. Now, that's easy to say, but most sales pros have no idea how to change a belief. ...
I just witnessed a piece of sales stupidity that deals directly with one of our biggest challenges: how to deal effectively with a no-go at the end of a sales cycle. Heres the whole story.A few months ago, an insurance agent contacted me suggesting I could get a better...
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. ...
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