Control Knowledge Center

Our Articles on Communication

1. Defining Real Sales Control

   If there’s one factor that sales organizations cry out to have—and that salespeople themselves crave—it is control. That is control over the deal. Control over the prospect. Most of all, control over bringing the deal to a close. What is real sales control?

2. Positive Control Means a Win-Win

   Continuing our series on control, we come to another reason that control is of such vital importance: you won’t reach the win-win of a closed sale without it.

3. Control Early—Close More

   Sales training—today and pretty much since the beginning of time—focuses almost exclusively on closing. Yet this constant focus has not resulted in higher closing ratios. They have remained the same over time: 80 percent of sales are made by 20 percent of salespeople.

4. The Power of Probing Questions

   Every day, salespeople deal with resistance because the sales process is an emotional one. I would like to help mitigate and make less of that resistance and possibly even make the whole sales process enjoyable! Here are a few actions you can adopt, make your own and work into your sales selling habits to help you turn your prospect's resistance into a desire to purchase.

5. How Important is Control?

   Control has negative meanings for some people. They resist control because bad control has been used on them, either in their childhood, in their jobs, or otherwise. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as good control. This could be the subject of a whole book, let alone a single newsletter article—so, for now, let’s stick to control as it applies to sales. As you’ll see, real sales success cannot be accomplished without control.

6. Creating Urgency to Speed up the Sale
   (members only content)

7. When You Can't Get Direct Access To The Final Decision Maker

8. Why Your Sale Spins Out of Control from the Start

   It could be that a percentage of your sales, pre-or post-covid19, have been lost because of a lack of control on the part of the salesperson. In fact, it can occur—and often does—that the sale can spin out of control, right from the start of any sales cycle.

   How and why does this happen?

9. Anxiety Kills Positive Control

   It is easy when a salesperson has a prospect in front of them who is somewhat qualified, for a salesperson to become anxious to push for the close.
   
   When this happens, the salesperson often stops listening to the prospect, who may very well be giving them the reasons they want to buy, which can be used to bring them gracefully through the sales process.
   
   Instead, the salesperson skips ahead to the Education step of the sales process, spilling out all the reasons the salesperson thinks the prospect should buy.

10. Why Does Your Prospect Pretend to be Just Looking?

    Control is utilized in sales to positively guide a prospect through the sales process.
    
    When done right, it is not only the salesperson that wins through closing the sale and earning a commission. It is also the prospect, for purchasing a product or service that will specifically and truly benefit them.
    
    The first stage of sales resistance is that age-old excuse for not talking to a salesperson: “I’m just looking.” 
    
    First, the truth of the matter is that your prospect is far too busy to be “just-looking

11. Doing Your Homework Puts You in Control

    In sales, control means a salesperson positively guiding a prospect right through the sales process, from beginning to end, completing every step.
    
    When this is not done—if steps are skipped or not fully completed—the sale is often lost. If it is done, however, you end up with the perfect definition of a sale, which is “an exchange in which both parties win.”
    
    A crucial key to control in a sale is homework.

12. Are You A Guide to Your Prospect…or a Bully?

    If you are going to successfully sell, you need to guide your prospect through every stage of the sales process. That is where control comes in.
    
    But this can be misinterpreted as attempting to push the prospect through the sales process. This is also known as “high-pressure sales,” and is an activity that makes people hate salespeople.
    
    This kind of “selling” could also be accurately described as bullying

13. The Power of Probing Questions
    (members only content)

14. Increasing Sales – How Soft Selling May Be Ruining Your Career

    Why is it that so many salespeople fail to make the grade in their personal sales careers and in the companies they work for? It’s because most suffer from a disease called soft selling.

15. Being in Control of the Sales Process
    (members only content)

Our Webcasts on Communication

1. Webcast: Rule of Eight
   (members only content)

2. The Power of Probing Questions
   (members only content)

Our Videos on Communication

1. What is Positive Control?
   (members only content)

2. The Columbo Close
   (members only content)

3. How to Increase Sales Productivity with Proper Organization
   (members only content)

4. How to Gain Prospect's Agreement
   (members only content)

5. How to Stay Focused and Be Productive
   (members only content)

6. How to Get More Accomplished
   (members only content)

7. How to Obtain More Sales Production
   (members only content)

8. Following a Company Mandated Step-by-Step Sales Process
   (members only content)

9. How to Maintain an Open Line of Communication
   (members only content)

10. The Price Objection
    (members only content)