Posts from — October 2007

After several months of leaving a series of voicemail messages for a prospective customer, she finally picks up the phone. “Marie Trent speaking,” she says in a flat tone.

Startled by the human voice on the other end of the phone, the message you spent hours crafting disappears instantaneously from your memory bank. Instead, you blurt out:

“Hi. My name is __ and I’m the sales rep for Generic Industries. You’ve probably heard of us. We’re the fastest-growing firm in the market right now and we have locations in 13 different cities. The reason I’m calling today is I’d like to get together with you to explore your needs and show you …”  Read more...

Talk about making the case for getting more personal in your sales efforts by using greeting cards, personal notes, and thank you cards…

I received the following sales stats from my friend Jeff Packard. Jeff is currently a trainer with Sendoutcards — he and I met several years ago when he was working with the Tom Hopkins organization. Suffice it to say Jeff knows what it takes to succeed in selling. He literally learned from one of the best sales trainers in the world.

On with the list…

1. Most businesses lose 10-17% of their business every year.  Read more...

Your mission statement is always written in the present tense, as though you have already become the person that you have described. It is always positive rather than negative. And it is always personal.

Program Yourself Correctly…
Your subconscious mind can only accept your mission statement as a set of commands when you phrase it in the present, positive and personal tenses. “I am an exceptional salesperson,” is a perfect example.

After every sales call, you should quickly reread your mission statement and ask yourself if your recent behavior was more like the person you want to be, or less?  Read more...

The life of a salesperson is filled with rejection. We typically hear far more “no’s” than we do “yes’s.” Actually, we probably hear “no” every single day of our selling careers.

Moreover, unfortunately, it isn’t just from prospects we hear “no.” We hear it from our companies, our suppliers, our sales manager, and almost everyone else we deal with. Our life is filled with the word “no.” Nevertheless, in order to get to our “yes’s,” we must hear the “no’s.”  Read more...

Ok. This is false advertising. There is no secret to “overcoming” the price objection. The truth is that the price objection cannot be overcome. That is because it isn’t intended to be overcome. It is meant to be resolved through thought facilitation by a sales person. The sales person’s role is to help the prospect work through the price concern as opposed to attempting to overcome it.

First, can we agree that it isn’t really an objection? It is a concern. I know that many sales books call it an objection, but it is not. It is an attempt by the prospect to resolve financial questions in their mind. People want to feel good about decisions they make and that is why concerns are brought up.  Read more...