Month: January 2012

Do You Really Know How People Decide to Buy?

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How about a provocative question to start the week? Yet, it is a great question to ask of sales people.

Do You Really Know How People Decide to Buy?

I know you will answer with many of the same answers I have used during the years of b2b selling. Here are many of the typical responses to this question…

  • It was the logical thing to do
  • It was based upon the hot button
  • It solved their problem
  • It had real value add
  • It was the low cost solution
  • It was the safe choice

Okay, once again, focus upon the real question – How Decisions are Made – rather than what you sold them.

Now if you are like most people (and I was included in this group until a few years ago), assumptions were made based upon our experience in selling, what sales trainers had told us and other externally driven answers. However, precious little thought time was devoted to learning how the decisions are made.

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Crunching the Numbers for Your 2012 B2B Sales Goals

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Sometimes the strangest series of events occur to alert us about things we should be doing to help us hit our numbers consistently every month, quarter and year.

This recently happened to me after attending a conference and listening to a great speaker talk about achieving results, then I watched a webinar done by an Internet Marketing Guru who challenged everyone to think about crunching their numbers to gain a better understanding of how to achieve, and finally while traveling I reflected upon things I did early in my sales career to help me succeed.

Amazingly, it all came back to asking a question…

What Will Crunching Your Numbers Do for You?

I almost wanted to kick myself in the seat of my pants since the answer was so obvious. Take some time to crunch the numbers of my personal sales goals for 2012. In this time of reflection and thought, there are seven points to focus upon while crunching your numbers.

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Barriers to Overcome to Get Decisions to Buy

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To continue the theme of why it is getting harder to be successful in b2b sales today, I thought it would be a good idea to clarify the barriers to decision making for you.

Most of these barriers are connected to the major theme for the decision makers today – job security. With the possible exception of the Great Depression in the 1930’s job security has never been this important – across the board.

Therefore, new strategies and focus must be added to your b2b selling skills box of knowledge. It is a time for wisdom to take a higher position or ranking in the minds of b2b sales people.

So, here is my list of barriers to the Decision Makers…

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Is It Getting Harder to Succeed in B2B Sales?

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Seems to be a recurring theme these days when talking with B2B Sales people today. With the exception of a small group who consistently tell me they are doing extremely well.

Why the polar opposite  responses to the same concept? Many b2b sales people are doing poorly while others are doing great.

So, I guess it is time to dig into the reasons for this difference of both opinion and performance.

Here is what I am finding from my research…

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Sorry About the Technical Issues

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I want to thank everyone for your patience last week regarding a technical problem with our website. The technical issue was due to code error – caused by a software update. This caused people to get a .gz file download rather than our actual webpages. For that I apologize for any inconvenience this could have … Read more…

Persuasive Statements Based upon See, Hear or Feel Buyers

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Now that you have your list of words as well as some understanding of how all these words help identify your buyer or decision makers thinking language, you are now ready to apply this knowledge.

So today I’m giving you some example statements for each of the three representational systems used by people – Visual (See), Auditory (Hear) and Kinesthetic (Feel) types.

I will start with the most common person you will find today – the Visual person.

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Words to Identify a Kinesthetic Buyer

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After writing about the three primary representational systems, it is time to give you a list of the words using by the different systems.

So, this is Part Three of the Three Part Series on words using by a visual, an auditory, and a kinesthetic.

The key is to ask a general question and then listen to the response identifying the word usage patterns. Here are two general questions to use for this purpose in B2B Sales…   

  1. “Describe to me…”
  2. “What would you change about…”

Fill in the blank in each question using your specific industry issues for a complete question.

Here are the Words for the Kinesthetic (Touch-Feel) Language…

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Words to Identify an Auditory Buyer

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After writing about the three primary representational systems, it is time to give you a list of the words using by the different systems.

This is Part Two of a Three Part Series on words using by a visual, an auditory, and a kinesthetic.

The key is to ask a general question and then listen to the response identifying the word usage patterns. Here are two general questions to use for this purpose in B2B Sales…

1.    “Describe to me…”
2.    “What would you change about…”

Fill in the blank in each question using your specific industry issues for a complete question.

Here are the Words for the Auditory Language…

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Words to Identify a Visual Buyer

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Okay, after writing about the three primary representational systems, it is time to give you a list of the words using by the different systems.

So, this is part one of a three part series on words using by a visual, an auditory, and a kinesthetic.

The key is to ask a general question and then listen to the response identifying the word usage patterns. Here are two general questions to use for this purpose in B2B Sales…

  1. “Describe to me…”
  2. “What would you change about…”

Fill in the blank in each question using your specific industry issues for a complete question.

Here are the Words for the Visual Language…

Read more…