Sales

Wise Words on Money Matters

by thesaleswhisperer August 16, 2010 Infusionsoft

Fear of money must be overcome to succeed in sales. The government must be held to the same spending standards as American citizens. Stop them from inflating the value of our hard-earned money away.

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Book Review: SNAP Selling by Jill Konrath

by thesaleswhisperer August 9, 2010 Professional Copywriting

Book Review: SNAP Selling by Jill Konrath. Professional selling requires professional reading, discipline and work. In my book reviews I help cut through the clutter to find the books and resources to help you succeed in sales.

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365 Ways To Double Your Sales – 16

by thesaleswhisperer July 14, 2010 Marketing Help

365 Ways To Double Your Sales – 16: Set Mutually Agreed Upon Agendas – 6. Find out your prospect’s top criteria and time frame for making a decision.

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365 Ways To Double Your Sales – 15

by thesaleswhisperer June 13, 2010 Sales Coaching

Set Mutually Agreed Upon Agendas – 5 Get the money talk out in the open early. Now that you’ve set the stage to both be open and honest and also that you are going to ask a lot of questions go ahead and talk about money. It’s AMAZING how often sales people are so uncomfortable discussing money that they wait for the prospect to bring it up. What’s up with that? If you’re nervous talking about money (and we have all been nervous discussing money) follow Zig Ziglar’s advice: “If you gotta eat a frog, there ain’t no use staring at it!” Get it out of the way now. It’s better to find out you’re 50% too high or right in line with the prospect’s thinking right up front so you can then either get down to business or go find a prospect with money. Do you know why salespeople [...]

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365 Ways To Double Your Sales – 14

by thesaleswhisperer June 6, 2010 Marketing Help

365 Ways To Double Your Sales – 14 – tell the prospect you’re going to ask a lot of questions rather than show up to be their dog and pony chump that provides a free education.

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Are You Racing to the Top or the Bottom?

by thesaleswhisperer December 13, 2009 Marketing Help

How does your offer differ from the competition? If your advertising and marketing is “safe” and “just like the competition,” how will your prospects know you are any better or offer any additional value? If they can’t determine that by your promotional material then they’ll assume you’re the same and then fight you on price…and it’s a race to the bottom. If you’re ready to race to the top with effective campaigns that generate results check this out then drop me a line. Thomas L. Friedman describes today’s times as “The Great Recession meets the Great Inflection.” He rightly discusses how the times we are up against now are forcing companies to become lean, innovative and productive. Anyone can become lean on their own. What are you doing to become innovative and productive? And are you sure you kept the right ones on the bus? Give me call or shoot [...]

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Change the Stinky Diapers In Your Selling & Be More Productive.

by thesaleswhisperer December 2, 2009 Sales Coaching

Change the Stinky Diapers In Your Selling & Be More Productive. Professional sales training programs with Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer®, can help you grow.

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Pilots Distracted By Laptop Teach Business Owners To Look Out the Window

by admin October 27, 2009 Weekly Whisper

Stupid airline pilots for Northwest have their heads in their laptops (and up their butts) and overshoot their airport by 150 miles. WTF? That’s why I don’t feel bad keeping my iPhone on during takeoffs and landings. I can use the GPS to tell the idiots up front when it’s time to land. But let me ask you something: how many opportunities have you missed because you had your head buried in your laptop or smart phone? It’s time to get out from behind your computer, smart phone and/or desk and stare out the window, go for a walk, notice your surroundings, look people in the eye, smile and take time to live an actual life instead of just a virtual life. If you own a business what vital tasks are you putting off because you’re “busy” on your PC? What vital tasks are your salespeople putting off because they’re [...]

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Is It OK to Lie to a Sales Person?

by thesaleswhisperer October 9, 2009 Marketing Help

Overheard conversation between prospective clients: “You know how you can tell when a salesman is lying? His lips are moving.” Overheard conversation between salespeople: “You know how you can tell when a prospect is lying? His lips are moving.” Who is right? How did we get to this point? When is it right to lie in a sales situation? Are there “forgivable lies” and “unforgivable lies” in a sales situation?

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Validation: The Secret to Sales Success

by thesaleswhisperer September 12, 2009 Marketing Help

My Dad always says “feelings are never right or wrong. They just are.” Confidence is the feeling that must be created if a sale is to be made. Professional selling is the transference of confidence from you to the client. After you watch this video let me know your thoughts below what you learned from it and how what you learned can help you grow in the profession of selling. In order to transfer the feeling of confidence you must first have it yourself. Selling can be a tough, lonely row to hoe at times. For weekly encouragement and a little one-on-one assistance check out the Inner Circle or Pre-Paid Sales Advisor Program. Both are geared to help you sell more now.

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The Lies My Sales Manager Told Me

by thesaleswhisperer September 7, 2009 Weekly Whisper

The last time I was employed in high tech I worked for a company full of good people, with an excellent product, that solved a crap load of problems most large firms didn’t even know they had! I mean this stuff was Da Bomb! It was slick, had blinky blue lights, was streamlined compared to the competition and ran circles around them in head to head comparisons. There was only one problem: getting anyone to listen to the presentation. If someone would listen to the presentation we were golden because we had good stuff. In fact, the entire week of training for new sales people was geared around mastering the presentation, which assumed, of course, we had a meeting with a decision-maker. At the end of the training I asked the then (now, not-suprisingly-downsized) VP of Sales how we got the meeting in the first place. He cocked his head, [...]

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Bang Out More Phone Calls to Grow Sales. (Really?)

by thesaleswhisperer August 31, 2009 Marketing Help

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 [...]

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The Best Free Sales Training on the Planet

by thesaleswhisperer August 28, 2009 Sales Coaching

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 [...]

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“F-Words” Are Killing Your Sales.

by thesaleswhisperer August 27, 2009 Marketing Help

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 [...]

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