Posts from — March 2007

Ahhh,,,the first signs of spring have arrived. Flowers are blooming, birds are nesting and car carriers are loading up and heading north. For many a South Florida business owner, spring also means fewer customers and slower sales.

Here are four ways that you can reduce the impact of the summer doldrums on your business by making sure your sales continue to bloom.

1. Measure the “soft” metrics. To capitalize on your most “growable” accounts, look for new ways to measure such relationship components as customer satisfaction, brand equity, and trust.  Read more...

Start Sentences With Verbs…
Closed-ended questions allow you to get definite answers and move toward closing the sale. Closed ended questions start with verbs, such as “Are,” “Will,” “Is,” “Have,” “Did,” and even contractions such as “Aren’t,” “Didn’t,” and “Won’t.”

This is often called a convergent question. It brings conversation gradually to a convergence on a single point or decision. It is answered with a “yes” or a “no.” You use this question when you want to begin narrowing the conversation and getting specific answers that lead you to a conclusion or a commitment.  Read more...

Awhile back, I heard about a super salesperson who was extraordinarily successful prospecting by telephone. She seemed to have a real knack for it, even though she was fresh out of college – having no previous sales experience.

The company’s other salespeople had targeted a list of high-profile potential clients and had been calling repeatedly month after month without success. This young woman was given an opportunity to work through the same list.

Almost immediately, the young woman began to get confirmations for the salespeople to make presentations to the real ‘powers that be’ at each company. It seemed the woman had an uncanny ability to get through a company’s bureaucratic layers and into the decision maker’s offices.  Read more...

Selling is not about the features of our products or services–or even the benefits the customer receives. Rather, it is about our relationship with the customer. People do business with people they trust.

That does not mean people will not make an occasional purchase of a specific item or service from someone they do not trust, because most people will. However, those purchases tend to be exactly that—one-time purchases.

To generate consistent, repeat business, to generate high quality referrals and to generate larger, more profitable sales, you cannot rely on the occasional one-time purchaser. To build a sales business you must develop a book of clients who trust you.  Read more...

In today’s business environment, products and services are being designed to enable buyers to customize elements of their solution. From cars to tech, airplanes to designer jeans, the B to C market is being driven by individual tastes.

But the decision making leading to the purchasing choice is the same. Whether one person has to purchase a single item (buying a new pair of shoes), or a team has to decide to add team building to their skills, or a company has to determine whether or not it’s time to partner with a new vendor and offer a new product capability (Starbucks and the New York Times), it all comes down to the decision-making process: until or unless the decision(s) get made to do something different, to make a choice, or take an action, nothing will move forward.  Read more...