Month: July 2010

Sixteen Tips for Getting Long Term Customers

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Today, I see sales people working really hard yet, missing the point of keeping customers for the long term. Long term customers are usually the most profitable and most fun to work with due to the confidence and shared respect with the main players in the relationship.

However, how do you get those long term customer relationships? It is something that goes higher than low price. It is more than a cleaver marketing idea.

It deals with the ability to connect to another human being in such a way, they like and respect you AND have a desire for interdependency with you and your company. This is ultimate in trust. And, as you know Trust must be earned.

So, here are sixteen performance tips to gain more long term customer relationships…

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Three Ways to Turn Off Prospects and Lose the Sale

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Today, I am sharing something that should be a no-brainer for all sales people. Yet, I see and hear the opposite behavior more than I should if the objective is to win an account in your business to business selling activities.

Unfortunately, a number of sales people get angry when they lose an account they have been working on and usually they expected to win the account. Thus, when surprised the emotional impact is to reactive rather than think about the consequences of spontaneous combustion!

Tip for the Day – Reaction is usually negative. Response stays positive due to the role of thought before action.

There are three things you need to think about before responding and focus upon remaining positive. These three areas are as follows…

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Tips for Selling in Hard Times

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During these economically difficult times, sales people and managers are asking the same question – “How do we create more results in today’s environment?”

While there are no silver bullets or 6th cavalry to charge in to our rescue this time, there are some things sales people can focus upon to improve their opportunities during this period. Following these four key tips will also position you favorably when things automatically improve.

Here are the four key tips for selling during hard times…

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Better Presentations in Six Simple Steps

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Seems like sales people are always asking me about how to make their sales presentations better. What presentation tips can I help them with to gain an advantage?

Other than the most common areas to focus upon – questioning skills to get valuable information prior to presentations and great planning and strategy are the real keys to having an effective sales presentation.

Yet, I find the need to share some practical how-to’s with my sales clients, both for confidence and the realization of when a sales presentation is going well.

So, here are six simple steps to better presentations…

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Four Steps to Unlocking Your Potential

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One topic of continuing interest with both sales people and sales managers is how do I/we unlock the potential for sales success?

This discussion also moves into a higher level discussion about “what is potential?” Yet, that is a discussion for a later date. It is a more complex topic and I would rather help you to unlock the potential you currently possess. This is an important issue since some researchers of personal performance indicate we human beings are only getting 8 to 10% of our true potential. If this is true, and I believe there is truth in the research – then we have a huge upside to activate.

So, let’s look at four steps you can employ today to unlock your potential and improve your sales performance.

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Positive Attitude in Five Easy Steps

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One of the toughest jobs for a sales person is to remain positive in your attitude. Especially today with all the talk about recession and down turns it is easy to get caught up in the negative talk.

Well, get tough and get going to the positive side of things. Remaining positive gives you the self-confidence to stay in the hunt for new deals, new accounts and recognizing new opportunities when others only see hard work.

So here are five steps or changes to your lifestyle designed to give you the extra advantage of a positive attitude.

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Trade Show Tips for B2B Sales People

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Occasionally I get a question or requests from a B2B sales person asking for tips for manning the trade booth at expos and trade association conferences.

First a couple of turn off behaviors:

  • Attacking or Pouncing on an attendee in the walkway
  • Yelling or Hawking your product or service like a TV or Cable ad pitchman
  • Sitting in the back of the booth and doing nothing to interact with a possible customer or prospect
  • Putting a table between the booth and the walkway – forcing the attendee to remain outside your space
  • Looking bored or disinterested in interacting with anyone

There are probably some others, however, I want to get to the good stuff. The tips to improve your trade show success. So here are the eight positive ways to influence your trade show success…

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Ten Tips to Effective Sales Presentations

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Are Your Slide Presentations Effective?

After watching or reviewing hundreds of slide presentations used by sales people, I have decided very few of these sales people understood the term effectiveness when applied to their slide presentations. Most of the slides are nothing more than data spreadsheets or short books of information text covering every slide.

This is not the way to “win friends and influence people” during a sales presentation. Take some time to create the professional image you want the customer to take away from your sales presentation. Take some time to prepare your presentation and use techniques to help build a professional image.

Here are Ten Tips to Effective Slide Presentations…

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Six Steps to Objection Handling

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While I believe the best course of action is to be so open and honest in your communication with customers you actually minimize the need to handle any objectives. This means you have already brought up any possible objections during your presentation or interview and have gained agreement as to how to best handle it.

However, there are some surprises that pop up during any sales process. So you must be prepared to handle any type of objection the customer raises. I have found these six steps to be the best course for improving customer relations and moving forward – even with a major objection coming up.

Here are the six steps to follow…

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7 Reasons You Talk too Much

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Talking too much is a curse for effective sales people. It opens the door to “winging it” strategies – er – mistakes which haunt a sales person as the customer or prospect remembers everything you say – even if you don’t.

Will investigating the cause of talking too much I discovered seven actual contributors to this “condition.” Personally, I had written off talking too much to a particular behavioral style – which is the big picture reason for talking too much. However, I found these seven reason will impact any of the behavioral styles of selling.

Here are the seven reasons you talk too much…

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