Always Be Contacting - OLD
Traditionally the “ABCs” of sales have meant “Always Be Closing.” But as we show throughout our training, literature, and workshops, closing is never the problem. Failed closes come about from neglected sales process steps prior to closing.Sales CPR- A Case for Competence - OLD
This story is one we hear over and over in our SALES CPR Clinics. Salespeople hate objections or shall we say resist them.
When you talk with someone and they are in strong disagreement with you, can you feel it? Even if they do not express disagreement, you can feel that something is wrong. Prospects resist salespeople by expressing objections, which act like disagreements. Salespeople resist this and also disagree with the objections. This creates quite a mess in the sales process.
The Best Career That Nobody Admits They Do… - OLD
Why is it no one admits to having the best career out there?Sales CPR – Confidence - OLD
Sometimes as sales professionals and executives we can “overthink” the problem. What gives a salesperson confidence? What gives us confidence in any profession? Training and experience, right? It really is that simple.
Here is the myth: “Experience = Old School” – The idea that it takes a LONG time to gain that experience is false.
The Guide Word That Helps you Establish Communication With any Prospect - OLD
There’s one skill that is common in every exceptional sales professional, the art of the conversion.
They know how to establish and develop it, all the while building agreement and gaining the prospect’s trust.
Ironically what the majority of weaker salespeople never seem to realize is that the sale is developed in these early stages through genuine interest and the desire to help, not later on with the help of some magical closing technique.
Beating the Closing Clichés - OLD
The subject of closing is so misunderstood that it is subject to many clichés—none of which really help. We’re going to take up some of the most overused of those clichés and debunk them for you, so you won’t be trapped by them.Busting the Biggest Myths About Closing
Let’s be honest — closing gets way too much hype.It’s one of the most misunderstood parts of selling, and it’s surrounded by clichés that sound good on a T-shirt but fall apart in real life.
The One Word That Helps You Connect Instantly With Any Prospect
If you’re reading this, odds are you’ve got a real interest in the art and science of selling. You probably know that sales isn’t just about slick closes or perfect presentations, it’s about connection.How to Improve Your Communication Skills
Whether you love chatting with people or would rather text your way through life, one truth stands firm: if your communication skills are weak, your sales results will be too.
How to Improve Your Communication Skills - OLD
Whether or not you enjoy talking to people, if you don’t have well-rounded communication skills, you will never achieve what you set out to. The ability to communicate well with almost anyone is universally agreed upon as a key element of both successful selling and success in general.
Approach and speak with an appropriate emotion. - OLD
One component of confidence is being able to look at a person, talk to them a little bit, and be able to make an educated guess as to where they are at emotionally. It is very important in sales to approach a prospect and speak to them with the appropriate emotion.Match Your Emotion to the Prospect’s Mood
One essential component of confidence in sales is emotional awareness — the ability to observe someone, talk with them briefly, and make an educated guess about where they’re at emotionally. In sales, success often depends on your ability to approach and communicate with a prospect using the appropriate emotion.
Preparation—The Certainty in Sales
A very basic element in certainty is preparation, which is what provides you certainty in the first place. Before you make the first contact in a sale, you must prepare by researching your prospect and finding out everything you can about them. You then further prepare by drilling your approach. These are the actions of any sales professional.Eliminating the Pajama Culture
One way to get that urgency instilled in your remote staff is to set the same mindset and standards for them as you do for your on-site employees. In a sense, you’re then melding your office and virtual environments and making them a unified wholeThe Harsh Reality of Waiting
The wrong way to create urgency is to wait for some exterior force or event to create it for you. For despite everything that’s taken place in the last year, nothing has been enough to create the urgency needed to bring us back to pre-covid productivity.Urgency is a Public Relations Campaign
The primary thrust of your message should be to instill (or re-instill) a sense of purpose in the recipients of your PR messages. What are your buyers trying to achieve with your product or service? How will your products and services help them do that?The Inconsistency of Urgency Creates Ups and Downs
The real problem you’re up against is that business production—and even living itself—has sunk into a lower level that has become “the new normal.” At first, when you’re trying to push urgency, you’re going to be up against that lower level that people have now accepted as routine. If you take even a casual look around, you’ll see that this lower level has become a cultural phenomenon.What Attributes Does a Sales Manager Need?
Despite the fact that a sales manager is often promoted from being a top sales rep, a sales manager is not going to succeed without possessing certain skills and attributes in addition to being a great salesperson.We do believe that great salespeople are not born, they’re trained. This is no less true of sales managers and, like salespeople, they will have to put in the work to become trained.
Sales Management: Evaluating Your Team with Precision
One of the top challenges of sales management is being able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each of your team members.Unfortunately, for many, it can be a guessing game. Looking over a sales team, one knows that a few reps do great, the majority can go either way—some months up, some months down—and there are those that never seem to make quota no matter what. The truth, though, is that the actual reasons sales reps are not succeeding can be accurately pinpointed.
Sales Management and The Right Metrics
A crucial component of sales management is having the right metrics for monitoring your sales team.Not having this information, all you can do is scream at the rep, “SELL MORE!” Unfortunately, that almost never works. There is a far more accurate and better solution.
Sales Management: Yes, You Have to Manage
This is the part of the job where “being a boss” comes into play. It’s the part where many sales managers either overdo it, acting like drill sergeants, or underdo it because they’re afraid to “act like an ogre.”There are some things about management that you should fully understand so you’re able to comfortably perform its functions.
Sales Aren’t Happening! Everybody Panic!
There is no greater nightmare for a sales manager than when sales just stop happening!Without having any clue as to what’s going on, a sales manager will have a tendency to come down hard on their salespeople when sales slow down. Much of the time this translates to yelling and screaming. At the very least it usually means speaking harshly to the reps.
The Foundation for The Close
As detailed in our book, the sales process, with Research as a critical stage, is built step by completed step. Each builds upon the other as a foundation, and the close sits upon that foundation. The close will either happen or crumble based on how well that sales process is done.Lack of a Sales Process is A Profit Killer
When a sales team doesn’t have a reliable sales process, a salesperson, to make the sale, is constantly having to go back and try and fix things they messed up. If they don’t have that skill, it will be very hit-and-miss.Turning the Sales 80/20 Rule Into 20-60-20
We found that if we focused on that middle 60 percent of salespeople, we could change an entire company. Getting that middle 60 percent to become consistent put pressure on the top 20 percent to produce more to stay on top.The 8 Core Abilities
As covered in the book, our research uncovered that there are 8 core abilities that all successful salespeople—yes, that top 20 percent—have in common. We have isolated these abilities and call them The 8 Cs of Selling.Desperation and Compromise Kills Your StaffX
In the last blog, we covered creating an excellent staff experience to attract new staff and keep the ones you have. But desperation and compromise in hiring will eventually kill that StaffX that you’ve worked so hard to create.Leading With Standards
There are people who have lowered their working standards throughout the pandemic. Here at SELLability, we’ve witnessed this ourselves with companies that are having increasing trouble finding competent staff.It’s an issue that, right at the moment, is sweeping through the whole society. Job market standards are being lowered so that hiring can occur. But doing so only results in a lower standard throughout the business community—a new, lower standard.
How do we solve it?
Don’t Wait
With this month’s blogs, we’ve laid out all of the necessary changes that you should make to set and maintain standards, so that standards are raised throughout the business world. There is much to do!Now that you’ve seen what you must do, we’ll say this: don’t wait!
Today’s Crucial Company StaffX
With this month’s newsletter and blogs, I’m probably coining a term*: “StaffX".If you’re in the IT or software industry, you may have heard or seen the term “UX” which is an abbreviation for “user experience.” Well, StaffX would, then, be an abbreviation for “staff experience”
