Month: February 2010

Limit Detail Sales Questions with Decision Makers

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I recently watched a sales person asking a string of detail questions with a decision maker. In my mind, I was wondering about the competency of this sales person – and I’m certain the decision maker was thinking the same thing.

Then I became amused by the sales person’s complete lack of understanding of what is important in the questioning process. After a few moments this emotion moved to frustration knowing that other sales people are doing the same thing and making it more difficult to get time with real decision makers.

Why does it become more difficult to get time with real decision makers? Because the decision makers do not want to waste their valuable time talking to incompetent sales people who have not done their homework before the meeting.

Let me explain what needs to happen more often…

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Four Things Your Customer Wants

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While talking to a sales client, an interesting question came up and I thought it would be good to share with all my readers. The question was – since several competitors have similar products to my company – how do can I know what they really want?

Now the surface answer is to discuss the power of questioning to discover opportunities (true, but not the right answer), having industry knowledge to provide clues (true, but not the right answer), to have internal coaches to provide answers (true, but not the right answer) or to offer the lowest price to get the business (not true or right!).

There are four things a customer is looking for in your business to business sales opportunity. Here are the big four…

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Lead Generation techniques with Purchased Lists

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Continuing my Lead Generation theme and creating sales growth, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss buying a list. Most people think buying leads is easy and straight forward. While it is simple, easy does not fit the description due to certain factors.

First, all lists are not created equal. There is a lot of junk in the marketplace and the lower the cost, the more you should question the source. A targeted customer list is your most valuable sales growth tool.

Second, data is not the same across available databases. Some databases really work at keeping their databases current and clean of junk. Unfortunately, these are the minority – so Buyer Beware!

Third, specifics are better for productivity reason than general information. And, the more targeted you get the more the price goes up. However, here is the big reason to buy a specific list – it saves you time and therefore the cost is a trade off.

Now there are factors or elements to consider when buying a prospect list and here is a list of factors to consider…

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