Sales Grail

Have you ever been completely confused about what someone is selling? It seems that many folks either over-think or under-think their sales techniques. I came across two lawn signs recently. One was advertising landscaping services, the other daycare. The landscaping sign displayed “Joe’s Landscaping” in a hard-to-read font. The image showed a truck (apparently Joe’s truck) and a phone number. That’s it. The second sign was just as disturbing to discerning sales professionals. It stated “Happy Hour Day Care.” I get the intent (who the heck doesn’t want kids to be happy), but really? “Happy Hour?” I was amazed at how twisted both messages were. In terms of sales techniques, if you’re sales presentation (no matter where it is – boardroom or front lawn) does not send the correct message immediately, you’ve set yourself up for a battle. Read more…

I recently encountered an interesting sales scenario with a company I was looking to hire. I requested an estimate on two specific services. During our very pleasant conversation, the sales representative suggested an upsell. I agreed and asked for an estimate for the additional work. Two days later I got an estimate just for the upsell, with the assurance that they’d get back to me regarding the remaining prices. Read more…

As surprising at it sounds, studies show that as many as 60% of the time when a prospect and a sales person are interacting, the sale person does not ask for the sale. This number is as high as 80% in some retail industries. The reasons for these extraordinarily high percentages are numerous: fear, lack of sales training, assumptions on the part of the sales representative…etc. The cure, however, may surprise you. Read more…

Do you ever have 30, 40 or 80 sales calls to make and just start dialing? Perhaps you had a busy week and you let them build up. Now you just want to power through them? If the answer is “guilty,” your success rate will be minimal and you’ll waste your time. Good telephone sales skills start with the right attitude. (Notice we didn’t say “sales time management”). Too many salespeople make calls because they “have to” not because they want to. How can you avoid this? Read more…

Most of us use good sales techniques. We work hard. We want to please our clients, and, of course, we want to close sales. However, we don’t like to say no. In fact, it’s a word we often go out of our way to avoid saying. Most sales training courses will steer you away from this word as well. While we can appreciate working hard to close deals, and finding reasons to say yes, a simple no can be a very effective technique to win the deal, on your terms. Read more…