1. Colleen Stanley has three great suggestions for sales managers who lead sales meetings. I love her suggestions. Since many sales meetings are less than impressive, this is a must-read for sales managers.
2. One of the major reasons salespeople don't achieve their maximum sales performance potential is because they have difficulty looking at the sales interaction through the eyes of their prospects. By this, I don't mean you shouldn't ask for the sale, or ask challenging questions, or cower in the corner when they give you objections. What I mean is we sometimes we tend to sell as if WE are the most important ones at the table.
Read Mike Sigers account of his customer service nightmare. Then rethink your entire process (if you're a salesperson, think through your entire sales process; if you're a manager, think through you're entire management process; if you're a business owner, think through your company's entire customer interaction cycle). Then, identify what you must change to ensure what happened to Mike never happens to one of your customers.
3. Things are a bit wacky these days in most industries with the recession and all. But employees are still important, and always will be. If you can't keep your key employees (or any employee for that matter) happy by giving them more money, here are 12 ways to keep your employees happy without raising wages.
4. What's the next big thing? Forget about the recession. Quit looking back and look ahead instead. Here's the next big thing in China. It's crappy.
5. If you do any custom-order work for your prospects, it's important to achieve absolute clarity with your customers before you embark on the custom work (please take note, home remodelers, custom closet companies, landscape designers...and cake bakers).
Let's imagine you call the cake bakery to order a cake. The associate asks what you want written on the cake and you say, "Best wishes Suzanne - underneath that we will miss you."
When you go to pick up Suzanne's cake for the big going away party on Friday afternoon, this is what they have waiting for you:
2. One of the major reasons salespeople don't achieve their maximum sales performance potential is because they have difficulty looking at the sales interaction through the eyes of their prospects. By this, I don't mean you shouldn't ask for the sale, or ask challenging questions, or cower in the corner when they give you objections. What I mean is we sometimes we tend to sell as if WE are the most important ones at the table.
Read Mike Sigers account of his customer service nightmare. Then rethink your entire process (if you're a salesperson, think through your entire sales process; if you're a manager, think through you're entire management process; if you're a business owner, think through your company's entire customer interaction cycle). Then, identify what you must change to ensure what happened to Mike never happens to one of your customers.
3. Things are a bit wacky these days in most industries with the recession and all. But employees are still important, and always will be. If you can't keep your key employees (or any employee for that matter) happy by giving them more money, here are 12 ways to keep your employees happy without raising wages.
4. What's the next big thing? Forget about the recession. Quit looking back and look ahead instead. Here's the next big thing in China. It's crappy.
5. If you do any custom-order work for your prospects, it's important to achieve absolute clarity with your customers before you embark on the custom work (please take note, home remodelers, custom closet companies, landscape designers...and cake bakers).
Let's imagine you call the cake bakery to order a cake. The associate asks what you want written on the cake and you say, "Best wishes Suzanne - underneath that we will miss you."
When you go to pick up Suzanne's cake for the big going away party on Friday afternoon, this is what they have waiting for you:
If you like this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to our free sales tips newsletter.
Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training,
a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip
is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more.
Recent Comments