As a salesperson, once you have your prospect’s attention, you need to make a clear, concise statement of the problems that you solve for customers. Think about what problems you can help the prospect solve. You need to customize your sales solution not only to your prospect’s industry, but also to that person’s self-interest. Make … Read full article
After you make a sales presentation or deliver a proposal, you must stay present in your prospects’ lives. The longer a prospect takes to make a decision, the greater the possibility that fear will develop when you’re not there. Therefore, to effectively handle your buyers’ fears, you need to regularly talk to them to see … Read full article
Not all customers practice win-win negotiating. Some buyers use a number of tactics to achieve greater concessions. Sometimes these tactics are just used as ploys to make you feel powerless and other times they reflect the customer’s reality. The skills you have to develop are determining which is which, and knowing how to handle the … Read full article
To maximize your sales potential, you must work hard at creating satisfied customers. By defining and shaping your customers’ expectations, you create a benchmark against which your customers can measure success. Also, you “freeze” your customers’ expectations, at least for awhile, and prevent those expectations from rising. Finally, you give yourself and your teammates a … Read full article
The criteria your customers will use to make the final buying decision (which solution to choose from which vendor) can shift over time. I hope you are keeping in touch with your Sponsor(s) and can check in with them regularly to see if they have added criteria, made some criteria more or less important than … Read full article
If you’re selling to the Complex Buying Team, the criteria that each decision maker considers important will be different. *Remember: if your sale involves more than one decision-maker, you’re selling to the “Complex Buying Team.” To win, you’ve got to identify all the decision-makers, determine their position on the team (Gatekeeper, Integrator, Virtual Authority, User, … Read full article
At TopLine Leadership, our sales training programs are designed to help your sales team to think and feel like a customer, that is, how to get into the customer’s head. With our sales training program, your sales team will learn how to sell based on how customers buy. We understand what it takes to improve … Read full article
Are you familiar with the old sales axiom telling is not selling? Well, telling is not coaching either. Confucius had it right when he said, “What I hear I forget, what I see I may remember, but what I do I understand.” He could have been giving advice to sales managers on how to develop … Read full article
A common mistake sales managers make when coaching salespeople is to give them a laundry list of things they need to improve upon. Most of us only have the capacity to improve one or two things at any given time. You don’t want to overwhelm your sales reps because you may damage their self-confidence. Give you … Read full article
To get better performance from your sales team, the solution is to steal a lesson from the medical profession and “triage” your sales team. Chances are, your peak performers and highly experienced/tenured people will survive regardless of how much time you spend with them. Praise and recognize them – continue to motivate them – but … Read full article