Posts from — February 2006

Saving The Lost Sale
There is a powerful technique you can learn called the “I Want To Think It Over Close.” This is the only way I know to save this kind of lost sale. You know by now that when the customer says, “I want to think it over,” he is really saying “good bye.” You know from your own experience that customers do not think it over. They do not sit there carefully studying your brochures and price lists with a calculator and a pen.

During my years of graduate business school, I took a number of courses on marketing, but not one single course on sales. Even had I wanted to take a course on sales, I wouldn’t have been able to, because none were offered. At Stanford, as in much of the rest of our world, marketing is considered a real profession; selling is considered a somewhat less than respectable job.

That’s really too bad, because we are all in sales one way or another, and we’d be a lot more successful in our work and in our lives if we took it a bit more seriously and got better at doing it. Consider this:  Read more...

Have you often avoided making those “dreaded cold calls?” Do you dream of how much better your business could be but just can’t bring yourself to pick up the phone?

You’re not alone. In the 10 years that I have specialized in coaching real estate agents, I have noticed the same avoidance patterns in each of my clients. This article gives you 5 tips to make it easier.

Tip 1 – Change the name

Just because February is the shortest month of the year, it doesn’t mean it should be your least productive month. We find that people who work on monthly schedules (such as those who make purchasing decisions) are well aware of the impact of fewer days in the month in which to get work done.

They tend to get the “week before vacation” syndrome to a small extent. You know how that is — people tend to be more focused the week before vacation than any other week of the year because they want to go on vacation with peace of mind.

In today’s competitive business environment, it often seems that the most important aspect of someone’s buying decision is price.

People constantly ask for lower prices, compare our prices with the competition, and badger us to give them a better deal. Regardless of what you sell, you probably face price objections on a regular basis.

I will never dispute that price is a factor in every sale. However, it is seldom the primary factor. If price was the only reason people bought goods and services, high-end boutiques and companies that sell premium products would not exist.