Posts from — September 2009

One position that has not been impacted by the economy is sales. Ask any CEO and you will hear that one of their biggest issues is finding and retaining good salespeople.

Something happened on the way to a sour economy: Too many companies learned the hard way that their salespeople didn’t know how to sell. Instead, their salespeople were good at taking orders and providing customer service.

There is nothing wrong with this approach, as long as the marketplace is always going to serve up new customers and keep current customers in business. Does that kind of marketplace always exist? Unfortunately, no.  Read more...

The phone rings. It’s a new customer you have never met saying, “I need a quote tomorrow morning on your highest-quality product. Can you get that to me?” How do you respond?
Let’s consider two options a rep can take:

Option A, “The Special Assignment Option”
Rep “A” will rush back to her office, yell for her specialist and burn the midnight oil churning out a fifty-five page response. She may toss in a brochure, include a national discount, mail it to the customer and cross her fingers.  Read more...

In 1928, the magazine Sales and Marketing Management surveyed American Businesses to determine how efficiently salespeople were using their time.

They discovered that the average salesperson in America was only working 20 percent of the time, approximately one and one-half hours per day. This finding caused bells to go off throughout the sales industry. The idea that salespeople were only working ninety minutes per day became the emphasis for improved training, better time management skills, better supervision, and better control of the activities of salespeople.

Double Your Sales  Read more...