Back in 1995, smiling and dialing was expected. A sales person was supposed to get names from trade shows, Thomas Register, Harris, etc. Then they were supposed to start calling. I swear, salespeople taught buyers to not answer the phone. I honestly believe bad sales tactics had a lot to do with the internet boom. Buyers desperately wanted a way to get product information without a pushy salesperson.
Many managers (whether in small, mid-sized or large businesses) who survived the very difficult last few years are working hard to come back strong. You may currently be: restructuring, hiring new talent, revitalizing your marketing plan, becoming more creative with staff resources and how best to maximize them, all while making the best of technology from the Internet to mobile to social media and various data analytics tools.
My advice if you would like to transcend the competitive landscape is to think about Intentional Growth™ and create a plan to establish, highlight, and promote how you are unique as you grow into the future. The critical word here is “grow” and the focus of this post is how your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) will support and fuel that growth.
Many sales people give up on their dreams because they worry about and try to avoid that feeling of rejection that comes when a prospect says “No”. It’s a natural concern. No one really wants to feel like a reject in life. However, it is a word that successful sales people must navigate past if they are to close deals, especially big ones.
When you hear “No”, it’s important to discern the story behind the “No”.
Sales in and of itself can often feel confusing. “What can I do to get my foot in the door at this company that I know (based on my research) is a perfect fit for my business offerings when I don’t have any connections there? Why won’t she return my calls to discuss the proposal she requested? Why didn’t they buy when they gave me all the right signals? How could they have possibly selected our biggest competitor when clearly we are the best fit to meet their stated objectives/needs?” I’m sure most of these sound familiar. So rather than sit at your desk ho-hum and ruminate on these questions, recognize these challenges during the sales process as opportunities to INNOVATE.
There are natural advantages women bring to the B2B sales process including their ability to read a room and understand what’s going on inside a buyer’s head. Women are especially good at reading emotions and assessing a buyer’s fear.
When I started in “sales”, I didn’t want the word sales in my title. In 1993, I graduated from Architecture school and took a job as “Sales Engineer” for a custom returnable packaging company. Yes – I was responsible for selling, but I never really saw myself as a salesperson. I saw myself more as a “figure out a way to solve customer problems in a way that my company could make money” person. This became especially true as I grew in responsibility to become a business manager and owner of my own businesses. Here are three lessons I’d like to shar
Here are five key points to consider in preparation to make your initial call on a prospective customer. No, they’re not about putting brochures in a folder or loading up the power point!
Not all sales people are scum of the earth. They do the work for businesses to thrive, create jobs, build connections and grow. So, if you’re in sales (or whatever you do), don’t be evil. And if you’re not in sales, please don’t be too quick to judge. There are a lot of sales professionals out there doing great work!
I received a very disconcerting email this morning from amazon.com. It was the typical occasional email that amazon.com customers receive, recommending books that I might enjoy.
Amazon, of course, is known for its ability to understand its customers’ taste and to make recommendations on that basis. The entire system is technology-based, not human-based. That is to say, amazon.com doesn’t really know me at all; it creates the illusion of knowing me by crunching data about my browsing and buying habits on its site.
When you are engaged in a complex sales process in which you are meeting face-to-face with the potential buyers, you know how to interpret what The Whale Hunters calls “The Buyers’ Table”–the literal and figurative table around which your team interacts with people from the whale’s team who will influence the final decision of whether or not to buy from your company.
But when you are engaged in responding to an RFP or RFQ, are you still paying as much attention to the buyers?
Let‘s say you want to get a bigger client. Like a huge international group. And you want to sell something, that is so big, that you have do deal with the board of directors, to get it signed. How do you navigate and align all those people that are involved in the sale?
Instead of randomly shooting messages out into the market and waiting for leads to come in, smart companies on a fast-growth path need a way to identify the specific prospective customers that ought to be their best candidates. What if you could make a list of the companies that are best for you to go after instead of simply following up on leads or cold calling?