When you run a business you frequently find yourself in a selling situation. You may be selling an idea, a concept, a product or service. Often you may be in a position where you are trying to persuade a member of staff to do things differently. All these situations can be categorized as selling. Read more…
Everybody in business has to perform a selling function at one time or another. Often people tell me that they are not salespeople but don’t realize that they sell ideas, concepts, change, improvements, methods of working or products and services. We all have to sell and the most important thing that we sell is ourselves. Read more…
At present, there are a lot of people in sales who are struggling to meet their sales budgets. One of the ways that you can increase your sales volume and your bottom line is to up-sell your customers and clients. Read more…
This is a specialist area that sucks up so much time, effort and money. Sales training is a huge investment area. It’s time to ask questions. Are the traditional ways working? How large is the dropout rate? How much is this costing? Read more…
The small business market is an interesting one because it grows by 80,000 every year in the US. However it’s important to remember that small business owners behave differently than the owners of large businesses. This article outlines nine tactics to remember when selling to small businesses. These guys are breed on their own. Read more…
By the time you are coming to the end of the sales process, you will have mentioned referrals frequently during the previous conversations with your prospect. This means that he or she is in no doubt how you develop your list of new prospects. You will have sown many seeds in the mind of your prospect, you will have explained precisely the sort of person you are looking for and if you do receive a referral, you will be generous in your appreciation. Read more…
What other people say about you, your products, your business and the level of service that you provide is much more effective and credible than anything that you can say on the same topics. When you say it, you are making a claim. When other people say it, or better still, write it, then it changes from being a claim to being a fact. Read more…
When we are in a buying position there a number of things which go through our mind before we make a positive or a negative decision. One of the first things we do, is to determine what we feel about the person who is presenting some sort of offer to us. We evaluate that person and the way we do it has a great bearing on whether or not we will actually purchase from them. This evaluation is carried out at a subconscious level and takes about 4 seconds.
Are you guilty of this? When you are faced with the prospective customer is start talking about the benefits of your product or your service you say things like, “We can save you money if you use our product. Do you know how much money you will save?” “Let me tell you how you can increase your efficiency by using our products.” “Are you aware how much time you can save using our products?” None of these questions or statements will uncover a great deal of meaningful information about your prospective customers. Read more…
The words that we use have an unbelievable significance in sales. The problem is that we are not being taught how to use those words to make the maximum effect. Sure, we are moving away from the evangelical type of selling where buyers are exhorted to buy, and we are moving away from the manipulative closing techniques of yesteryear. Now we have moved into more the relationship type of selling. However, we are still short of understanding how to use words to the maximum effect. Read more…