Stress Release for Sales People
A successful salesperson, justifying his purchase of a new carbon frame mountain bike as an investment, first made a statement of the obvious – ‘these are stressful times for anybody in sales’ and then a statement of wisdom ‘you have to have an outlet, or a strategy for dealing with that stress’. Fitness for Success […]
Justify With Numbers – Compel With Emotions
Fact sheets, spreadsheets and ROI calculators are vital sales tools, but they are not enough. The seller must tap into the buyer’s underlying buying motivations and emotions as well as connecting with the buyers logic and analysis to improve sales performance. Moving Beyond The Calculator In Selling In business, emotions are generally considered unhelpful at […]
Bounded Rationality: Balancing Logic And Emotion In The Sale
Although organizations are increasingly structured and sophisticated in their buying, for as long as people are involved in making decisions there will inevitably be an element of human fallibility in terms of how decisions are made. This is the age of the Utilitarian or Economic buyer and the Cost-Benefit Analysis. Where decisions are made by […]
How To Open-Source & Crowd-Source Your Selling!
In these challenging times traditional job descriptions and role demarcations are redundant. No more is this evident than in respect to the need for ‘all hands on deck’ in terms of sales & business development. We call this trend the ‘Open-sourcing of sales’. Sales Requires New Collaboration Organizations can no longer afford to leave selling […]
Do You Know Your Buyer’s IQ?
The buyer’s knowledge state, what we call Buying IQ, is of vital concern to the salesperson in terms of adapting the sales approach, or pitch. It is also essential to accurately pre-qualifying, forecasting, sales opportunity and overall sales performance. Measuring Your Buyer’s Buying IQ The seller should start from the assumption that the buyer has […]
The Fast Sale: Don’t You Know Who Stephen Kiprotich Is?
In selling, just as in sports, speed is just one of the factors that determine success. Indeed, Gold Medal winners provide some inspiration in coping with longer more complex sales. Olympic Inspiration For Sellers I bet you have heard of Usain Bolt, the fastest person ever and star of the 2012 London Olympics. Bolt won […]
Are You Helpless To Prevent Stalled Buying Decisions?
One of the most popular B2B Sales Blogs from the US has just posted an interview with The ASG Group’s John O Gorman and Ray Collis on the subject of stalled deals. The interviewer Dave Stein of ES Research Group asked Ray and John the following searching questions, with a snippet of the responses shown for each: 1. Why […]
Sales Training Under The Magnifying Glass
We did an analysis of sales training courses recently. We found that there was little change in over a decade in terms of the topics being addressed. More important still, it appears that sales training has failed to reflect any of the dramatic changes that have taken place in respect of how buyers buy. Indeed, […]
Buyer OCD: The Obsession With Lowest Price
More and more buyers are being diagnosed with Price OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is causing increased anxiety even frustration among salespeople. Buyer OCD is a diagnosis offered by salespeople who are witnessing first hand the ongoing buyer obsession with price and the compulsive; price checking, competitive tendering and price re-negotiation, that accompanies it. […]
The Competitive Tender: Sellers Can’t Expect Buyers To Be Monogamous!
Don’t be taken aback when the buyer seeks competing quotes. Instead, only get surprised if he, or she doesn’t. A sales strategy that assumes buyer monogamy is a dangerous one. The Illusion Of The Monogamous Buyer! Sellers should never get complacent. Don’t let an apparent coziness fool you into thinking that the buyer is going to be monogamous! In […]
What Science Tells Us About The Speed Of Buying
Today’s buyers are slower to decide and that makes sales cycles longer. That sounds like a statement of the obvious, but it is actually grounded in our most up-to-date understanding of the workings of the human brain. Scientists Reveal The True Speed Of Buying You don’t need to understand cognitive science in order to know […]
Get Yourself A New Friend – An Accountant!
Selling to today’s numbers-obsessed buyers requires a new dexterity with numbers. But that poses a challenge for many salespeople. Could you sit down with an accountant (or accountant-type) for 30 mins and absolutely convince him, or her about the merits of your solution? That is a key measure of the type of skill required to sell […]
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