Tag - sales process

After you’ve completed your sales presentation or product demo, the buyer enters the evaluation phase of the buying process, and a scary monster frequently rears its ugly head: risk.  Risk can kill a deal, and its threat can increase as your prospect evaluates your offering. What is the opportunity cost of going with this solution …

You’ve just made a great sales presentation for a great prospect.  The whole sales process has gone smoothly from the beginning.  You like your buyers, and they like you and your offering.  They definitely want to do business with you!  If only you can agree on a price. It’s easy and natural to get a …

The Internet.  That – in one word – is why cold calling is dead, even for B2B sales. Before the Internet, the role of the sales rep was to educate a prospect through a presentation.  If it generated interest, the sales rep would qualify the prospect and then focus on closing the sale.   Back then, …

There are two forces that drive a customer’s buying decision: business reasons and personal motives. A successful sale depends on your ability to accurately identify the reason your customer has for buying and what he’s looking for in a vendor. If you fall short in either area, you are likely to lose the sale. To …

Goal setting is one of the most powerful tools and methodologies to improve engagement – engagement of sales people and engagement of employees. Billy Cox writes in the All Star Sales Book: Get in the Game, Boost Your Number and Earn the Big Bucks  “Why do such a small percentage of people reach the elite performer …

In sales, you must understand what the core drivers are for a business owner when he or she is making a business decision, especially about buying your product or service. In the business owner’s mind, they are relating everything they evaluate to three key core business drivers: revenue, expenses and risk. They are asking these …

Selling is a beauty contest, not a race. Unfortunately, the majority sales reps and sales leaders focus on their goals, their quota and making the numbers in the forecasted time frame, thus creating the sense of a race. This race approach is very seller centric, not customer centric. According to a recent Salesforce.com study, 82% …

Is your selling strategy based upon building solid relationships through the sales rep’s likeability factor? If so, you are getting a declining return on the sales rep’s ability to get new business or even maintain existing customers. Most sales reps are very high in the red or relationship quadrant. (Whole Brain Thinking) (Herrmann) They have good people skills …

Busyness does not necessarily equate to productivity. John Lee, writes in his blog Lessons Learned from the Least Busiest People that real productivity comes from a free mind, not a busy mind. I love his example of the surgeon running from one meeting to another while also trying to stay focused to operate on a person, …

No Questions – No Sale – Improving the closing ratio Jill Konrath makes a great point in her latest blog about sabotaging the sale by not asking enough questions. sabotaging the sale A good sales rep relates the product or service features to true business situations. If you are quick to answer the customer’s problem before …