Time Expectations

In our modern world, we are bound by time. This being the case, we have certain expectations about how long it will take us to accomplish our various tasks. Time often becomes distorted through our perceptions and expectations.

In Sales - What Differentiates Top 5% Players?

Recent exhaustive surveys suggest that only 5% of professional salespeople reach and remain at the highest level, which we call Level 3. A further 15% attain Level 2 status, but the majority, i.e. a massive 80% remain at Level 1 in terms of potential achievement.

Developing Your Team - What Are Your Options?

In today’s highly competitive selling environment, there is less room for apprenticeship, as organisations need to see a swift return on their investment. Therefore, Sales Directors need to allow sufficient time to enable their investment in training and development to “pay off”. Introducing ongoing reinforcement programmes will help accelerate the benefits gained from the training and development investment.

Are You Setting Your Team Up for Failure?

Changing your recruitment process will change your organization and the people within it. Rather than constantly replacing your staff, you’ll attract talented salespeople and become a successful company just by letting your sales team be themselves.

Developing Sales Discipline: Here's What It Means To You!

In an earlier article I asked whether selling is more of a skill or a discipline. My take on it: It comes down to about 80% discipline, and 20% skill. Some people took umbrage with my view, probably because they want to glorify this fine occupation of ours, making it seem difficult, and therefore somehow more professional. But the real difficulty is summoning the discipline to do what has already been proven, in millions upon millions of transactions, over many decades, to get buyers to buy.

Major Account Management Is Not A Single Action

In Part Two of this four part series, I identify that Major Account Management is not a single act but a series of actions which link together to produce a powerful, professional and profitable result.

Story Selection

In selecting a story that is appropriate for any given circumstance, there are three fundamental questions you must ask yourself. First, does the story fit your audience? How does it support and underscore your main message? Second, is it a story you love, have lived or have learned from firsthand? These are key elements if you want your story to be as compelling as possible. Third, can your story be related in a way that your audience will not only appreciate it, but also identify with it and be able to relive it?

Tough-Love Sales Management

Like transforming coal into diamonds, salespeople require pressure to become wealth producing. Either salespeople pressure themselves, or managers pressure them, or both. But left alone, like most things in nature, salespeople die on the vine, wither, and shrink from view.

Sales Managers: When Should You Fire Your Best Salesperson?

There are just some topics that you shouldn’t bring up in polite company. I could name them, but I’d be out of line. Yet I can’t resist speaking about this one topic of special relevance to sales managers everywhere. When should you fire your BEST salesperson? This is a question that comes up more than you might think, though it is as taboo to openly ask as “When is the boss going to croak?”

Strategies For Leading A Sales Force

This article will provide strategies to understand learning styles. From this information you can adjust your training and coaching to accomodate different styles. This will result in increased effectivenes and sales.

Sales Recruiting: Hire A Racehorse

Sales Recruiting is an important element in building a successful company. Without a solid sales team to spread the word and secure orders, companies are facing an uphill battle.

No Web Site, No Voice Mail, No Problem!

Can you imagine wiping out your web site and your voice mail system on purpose? One well-known publisher has done this, and you'll find it hard to argue with his success, says Dr. Gary S. Goodman, top speaker, best-selling author, and Fortune 1000 consultant.

If Your Sales Strategy Is Not Clear Sales Will Suffer

Ask any of your sales managers to define sales strategy and you might get a myriad of responses. Some right, some wrong and many just vague. Ask them to define operational effectiveness and you will tend to get more accurate answers depending on the level of the manager.

Sales Management for Commercial Trash Services

Not all sales management jobs are glamorous. Often we think of used car sales people as schumks and this indeed is the public perception, yet we all drive cars and without these sales people selling new and used cars, well there may not be an entire US Automaker Industry here in America. Ziggy Ziglar use to say; Nothing Happens Until Someone Sells Something.

Managing Team Sales at the Counter

Despite popular belief all counter operators at a cash register for a business are sales people and they are very much part of your sales force. Indeed I myself never really realized this until I was 14 years old and working at a McDonalds and they taught us to up-sell customers and we watched a video on how to do this.