by thesaleswhisperer on Mon
The Great Lies of Sales & Marketing “Pick up the phone and bang out more calls today than you did yesterday.” ~~~ If you can still make money banging out calls then knock yourself out. But in my 14+ years of selling I am seeing this form of client development really diminish as an effective use of a sales person’s time. And if the return on your time investment is diminishing, the answer is NOT to spend more time doing it. That’s just dumb. Besides, unsolicited phone calls performed by product-pushing, commission-hungry sales people is just plain annoying! Today, when you hear a “rah-rah” guy on stage getting you pumped up to pound out phone calls, get thick skin, ignore rejection, “they’re not saying no to you but to your offering,” picture this: your son’s 7th grade flag football team lining up against the Dallas Cowboys with a great attitude [...]
The typical sales person cannot tell you what it takes to make a sale happen. If you ask them to define their sales process half will tilt their heads like my white lab, Decker, when my son’s playing his trombone…25% will say they “bond and ask open-ended questions” and 20% will just ramble aimlessly, tell a joke and offer to buy you a shot of whiskey and compare Fantasy Football rosters. The 5% that have learned to codify and systematize and automate their sales processes are the ones making all the money. It all starts with putting the science into the art of selling. (And don’t try to BS me into believing “sales people are born not made!” because I hate choking on my Coke and making the fizz come out of my nose. It burns and makes my eyes water.) Shakespeare seemed to make some beautiful pieces within the [...]
by thesaleswhisperer on Fri
Free Sales Training seems to be the magical buzz word during these tight economic times. People are always asking me if I have any “complimentary” training (I tell them they look nice when they’re riding public transit) or if I can discount my training (what kind of sales trainer would I be if I couldn’t negotiate my own training?) or if I can recommend any good books for sales so at least they get cheap sales training vs. free sales training. What I finally end up telling them is that the source of the best free sales training on the planet is their kids. You can both learn from them and practice on them. “How so?” I can hear you asking. You can learn from them in their consistency and persistence when they want something. Now I’m not saying to go begging for stuff but kids know how to position [...]
by thesaleswhisperer on Thu
You wouldn’t use “f-words” in mixed company or in church or when explaining to your spouse what you do for a living so why are you using them when calling on prospects, especially decision-makers such as business owners, CEOs, Presidents and other VITOs? No, I don’t mean THAT F-WORD! (I’m a polite Southern boy, remember?) I’m talking about the WORST F-Word a sales person can use in the presence of a “big picture” person who normally, typically, usually also controls the budget and creates the budget! That word is FEATURES! Geeks and “See-mores” and technicians and those that can tell you NO but not YES love features such as Horsepower Foot pounds of torque Power requirements Height, width and length Frequency and Gigahertz and Heebie-Jeebies and Flux Capacitors Can you ever imagine Donald Trump asking a Dell or IBM or HP sales person “Does your blade server have a quad [...]
by thesaleswhisperer on Thu
Sales management training is the key to growing your business in any economy but most don’t do it.
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