The Single Best Question to Ask in Selling

Recently I have seen an increase of the number of requests for “the single best question to ask a customer or prospect” when engaged in b2b selling.

Truthfully, I really do not believe there is one single question that covers everything as sales situations will vary in circumstances.

Yet, there is one question that I always have ready to use with any customer or prospect I’m calling on. Sometimes I refer to this question as the million dollar sales question since it has the ability to open the door of an objective conversation with the customer or prospect.

The question to use is…

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Are Your B2B Sales Goals Identified for 2012?

Just a gentle reminder, you should have your B2B sales Goals for 2012 established, noted and in some cases – launched.

If you have neglected to set your new goals for the coming year, then you are one of three types of people:

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Three Elements of Persuasion

Persuasion is  one of the most important traits every b2b sales person must possess. However, it also seems to be one of the most misunderstood success habits in the b2b sales person’s arsenal.

The interesting thing about persuasion is the Greeks figured it out back in the 3rd Century. The famous Greek philosopher – Aristotle – pointed out there are three key elements to the persuasion. When you understand the three elements, you will understand how to use persuasion every day.

So, here is what Aristotle determined back in the 3rd Century…

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Are You Planning Every Customer or Prospect Contact?

One thing I noticed with high tech world we live in – few people actually plan their customer or prospect contacts. Winging it is ruling the day due to the instant or urgency tendencies of text messages and emails.

GEEZ! Winging it is a bad thing. It does not work with b2b sales presentations and it definitively does not work with phone calls, texts and emails. Okay, you Xer’s are laughing too hard about the email comment. Old Boomers enjoy calling the most, emailing next and texting is new to us.

Okay, some of you are possibly wondering why should you be planning your contacts. Look if you are planning your face to face calls, it is not very different. With the exception of being even more strategic with your phone calls, emails and texts.

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Four Critical Points for Presentations and Proposals

Today I want to share a two-for with you covering both your presentation points and your proposal or conceptual agreement section. This points are critical relative to your persuasion skills and particularly your ability to lock down your credibility with your customer.

By the way, these four critical points all require you to be using the Questioning Model of b2b Sales as your primary sales strategy. When you are using this model on a routine basis, your ability to cover the four critical points will become very simple.

And, as I stated in the title and knowing how to deliver these four critical points makes your presentations and your proposal sing in the ears of your customers.

So, here are the four critical points you will need to use in every presentation and proposal to increase your probability of b2b sales success…

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Eight Words or Phrases Hurting Your Credibility

Okay, finally my world is getting back to normal after the lost of my computer. There appears to be bad people in many places. However, this is not the subject of the day.

In recent discussions with various buyer types I have learned they have “red flagged” certain words or phrases and immediately assume the b2b sales person is only trying to “sell” them a product or service. They go further and state these terms in their opinion is fluff or smoke for the b2b sales person’s mirrors.

So, I began to ask about the words they believe are negative relative to building a trust based relationship. Some of the terms are obvious and a couple truly surprised me, yet, I feel these buyer types were truthful and if it is their perception – then it is real for them.

Here are the eight words you may want to stop using when talking with your customers today…

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