What are your daily sales habits? How do you kick start each day to ensure you have a productive, results focused day? Do you get lost in your email? Do you grab a coffee and chit chat with friends?
Every morning I wake up and have a glass of water with a squeeze of lemon juice. It’s supposed to be good for the liver. What’s more important to me is that this … Read More
Think about a recent sales objection that you’ve encountered, one that typically surfaces in your selling world. What do you do when presented with a tough objection? Do you jump in to answer it with a convincing statement?
If so, how is that working for you? Likely, not very well. Here’s why.
Telling is not selling
We know that questions persuade more powerfully than any other selling skill. We know that ‘pitching’ our ideas, products and solutions without getting grounded in clients’ needs beforehand makes it next to impossible to position … Read More
One of the questions I get when training sales professionals is almost always about handling client objections. Sales people seem to dread this part of the sales process. That’s because they don’t prepare for them well, and don’t have a positive perception of objections. I look at them as a key learning device for uncovering the client’s needs. Yes, I look at objections not as barriers but as clues to achieve sales success through understanding what clients want.
I recently asked Jim, one of my colleagues, for an update on the … Read More
The boy scout motto ‘Be Prepared’ couldn’t be truer for sales. Especially when it comes to handling objections. There is no excuse for struggling with the same client objections over and over again. And yet it’s astonishing to see that professional sales people don’t develop a proactive strategy for handling these common objections.
Reactive Objection Handling
In my work coaching sales people, I find that many follow this common pattern:
Dread objections and pray they won’t come up Get defensive when they surface Struggle with a response and lack confidence Don’t … Read More
Using ‘Perceptual Positions’ is a powerful way to mentally shift into your client’s shoes and gain that powerful client perspective. But here’s what I recently learned when I actually physically experienced the world from my client’s perspective. It was astonishing!
A new prospect phoned me to let me know she was interested in purchasing my video training on ‘13 Expert Tips for Creating Truly Persuasive Presentations’. She expressed frustration because the information page lacked clarity about what she was actually buying and in what format. Yikes! I was very grateful for … Read More
Persuasive words sell. There are multiple ways to weave persuasion into the fabric of your presentation. This week in Toronto, we had a lot of fun in our UPFRONT Persuasion workshop playing with persuasive words.
Thorough preparation and proper structure are essential for a compelling delivery: they foster confidence and your ability to walk through your presentation in a clear and logical way.
Part of your preparation should most certainly include developing relevant stories for social proof, analogies and evidence to support your … Read More
If I were to ask you to specifically define your sales process and tell me why it works to produce sales results, what would you say? My hunch is you would struggle with your answer.
That’s because one of the most all too common mistakes made by sales people from all industries and professions is their lack of a disciplined, intentional sales process that stacks up against well established best practices.
How can it be that organizations understand the importance … Read More
The most streamlined source of new business is to develop opportunities with existing clients, including asking them for referrals.
Event marketing, email marketing, research marketing, social media marketing are all excellent strategies for getting new leads for sales. But by far, one of the most under-utilized source of new business: referral marketing.
According to a study titled “Referral Programs and Customer Value” (published January 2011 issue of the American Marketing Association’s Journal of Marketing), customer referral programs are indeed a financially attractive way for firms to acquire new … Read More
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