Salespeople need to know that closing the deal often means having confidence in your product, your pitch, and pricing – and holding your ground. Here are four rules to keep in mind that will garner more sales and more respect.
I’m concerned. In fact, I am really worried. After finishing a lecture on sales at a local university to a room full of bright and eager students, I have a question for the administrators who are running our institutions of higher education. Do you know what is missing in the curriculum? To me, it’s obvious – and it’s a perfect opportunity for higher education to differentiate and create more successful students. To some purists, it may be anathema, and to realists, it’s unavoidable.
It’s about this time of the year that many companies are just finally releasing the current year compensation plan to the sales organization. Yes, you heard that right – the comp plan for the current year is being sent to sales almost 3 months late! That’s not motivating! If you want to know what is motivating, read my 10 simple principles to creating a successful compensation plan.
Brian Nolan, President, Summit Services, Inc.
I recently read a book called Leading Change by John P. Kotter. A couple of things jumped out at me as being very relevant for small business owners and managers. There was a chapter dedicated to why companies fail at implementing change.
I lost a deal today. Yep, it happens to all of us. Usually, salespeople want to make sure that our prospects have choices when proposing goods and services. I have seen – and have been guilty of – the sales syndrome I am hereby naming “toomanychoiceitis” or its other name, “overproposingitis.”
Ever notice that sometimes when you are about to give up – when you’ve tried too hard or too long and the obstacles seem too great, when you just don’t have it in you to keep going – as if by magic, you have a breakthrough. I see this in my own life, when the prospects with whom I have been following up with for years finally bring us in for a project.
Special Event: Transform Your Sales Culture. Join Gene Marks and me on March 30, 2012 to learn how to upgrade your sales technology and increase your sales! Plus, you’ll get copies of our books – Everyone’s in Sales and In God We Trust, Everyone Else Pays Cash. For details, click here and to register, click here.
