Posts from — October 2006

The gift called asking has been around for a long, long time. In fact, one of life’s fundamental truths states, ask and you shall receive. Kids are masters at using this gift but we adults seem to lose our ability to ask. We come up with all sorts of excuses and reasons to avoid any possibility of rejection. Yet the world responds to those who ask. If you are not moving closer to what you want in sales (or in life), you probably aren’t doing enough asking.  Read more...

In today’s business world it is not uncommon for many sales people to work from a home office. At first this may seem like a great opportunity, however, it does create some unique challenges. One of the biggest obstacles is the number of distractions that can take us away from our work and prevent us from achieving our objectives.

When you work from a home office it is easy to get distracted from work, especially if it is work that you do not particularly enjoy like prospecting or cold calling. Watering the plants, running errands or even doing laundry can be a welcome change from the daily drudgery of selling. And, if you have young children, the number of distractions increases dramatically.

Rich at Business Opportunities weblog has an interesting article entitled, ‘How to Sell Your Services Better‘.

He shares some interesting ideas for getting around the fact that services in and of themselves are intangible — that is they can’t always be touched or seen — and as a result often demonstrated easily. Yet as he points out — that’s exactly what a person must do in order to make it easier for their prospects to make the buying decision.

I’ve included a few of the ideas shared in the article — along with some thoughts of my own.  Read more...

The Invitational Close is simple, low-key, classy and powerful. You use it at the end of a sales conversation to conclude the transaction. It is preceded by a Trial Close such as: “Mr. Prospect, do you have any questions or concerns that I haven’t covered up to now?” Or, “Mr. Prospect, does this make sense to you, so far?”

Probe for Lingering Objections…
You ask these questions to be doubly sure that the prospect has no final objections lurking in the back of his mind that would block the closing of the sales process. You then invite the customer to make a buying decision by saying, “If you like what I’ve shown you, why don’t you give it a try?”

Customer service — particularly good customer service is a skill that anyone with the desire to become a stand out sales professional would do well to study. The folks at Brainbasedbusiness.com have an interesting article called, 10 Customer Service Secrets from Home Depot that has some good ideas to consider.

Here are couple of points that stood out in my mind, as well as a few comments of my own.

1. Wait until a shopper indicates a desire for your help … then jump at that chance.  Read more...