Todd Cohen

The Secret of Sales is……

Sales Community Members... 

What do you think the secrets of sales success are? Is it a vast well of closely held deep dark secrets that only a few master or is it there right in front of you? I have talked, held sales coaching classes and lectured on this for years and thought about my own successes and almost successes and I keep coming back to one common denominator.

Dress for Success?!

Lately is seems to me that many people have been "debating" what is the right way to dress to see a client-especially a new client. I have always defaulted to what I have termed "full battle dress"..or simply a suit, not a sport coat and slacks etc. I think that people make a judgment call as soon as they meet us and obviously a good impression is all important. I have stories from my "dot com" days of never wearing suits ( and this was normal) and having clients tell me not to come to see them under-dressed. I still wonder some days when seeing a new client if I could get away with dressing casually, but never ...

NEVER STOP NETWORKING!!

Many of you are naturals at the "art" of networking. Some have to work harder at it. Some are terrified to network. I have always enjoyed the process because I have always thought and believed that it is just a natural extension of what we do as sales pros! Meeting and greeting with a "mission" in mind is not a bad thing. Everyone does it. Even non sales professionals! I do think that we have to approach networking essentially the same way when we are pursuing business development or perhaps engaged in a job search. If you are skilled and comfortable at developing and nurturing relationships in your personal life, then I think you ...

Closing the Deal!

Closing the Deal. What we all strive for and what puts food on the table. There is nothing like the rush of seeing a prospect we have been cultivating finally spill ink on the contracts in the form of a signature! I have seen ( and done) some pretty inventive things to close the deal. ONe story that comes to mind from many years ago was when I once overnighted a series of contracts to a prospect and asked him to either: Please sign the deal. Please sign the attached document explaing that he did not want to save money and rejected our offer. I explained in this letter I had to prove to my boss that this deal was ...

Getting in to see the “C” level

Why is is we have such a challenging time to see the "C" level at our accounts? Do we want to sell as the "C" level all the time? Are there times when this can hurt us? We as sales professionals have always looked for better and more efficient ways to open that door to the executive suite. I have seen people try a myriad of different things ranging from interesting letters, unique cold calling campaigns to using 3rd party houses to help open the door. So, my blog question to this sales community is what has worked for you? Share and help us all get better.