Monthly Archives

January 2016

Jan 16
1

Why you need to understand procurement professionals better

By | customers, sales tips, Training | No Comments

Why you need to understand procurement professionals better.


Have you ever really sat down and thought about some of the pressures your customers are facing, particularly if a key part of their job involves the procurement function? Come to that, do you treat them like proper human beings or just ‘problems’ to be overcome or sold to?

 

If you don’t, not only are you being unprofessional, but you are genuinely missing out on sales opportunities. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment – and see how you, if you were buying, would like some of these scenarios:

 

1. Day after day you meet with salespeople who range from wonderful to downright obnoxious.

Unfortunately, many salespeople have egos the size of a small country and think you are just some sort of obstacle to be ‘got round’. So you have to spend your working day talking to arrogant, self-centred and just plain unpleasant people. And that’s not taking into account Read More

Jan 09
0

What’s on my selling wish list for 2016

By | entrepreneurs, marketing, sales tips, sales training | No Comments

What’s on my selling wish list for 2016?night-1077855_1280
Why not dream for a bit? I may be a sales trainer, but I still need to sell, so if I was in ‘sales heaven’ and I could have whatever I wanted, I think this little list would cover it:

1. No one will ever ask for a discount. In fairness, they rarely do now, but it would just be nice not to get asked at all – I am good at what I do you know – and if you work with me, you will recoup the cost many times over. So don’t insult my expertise by devaluing it.

2. Every time I try to make an appointment, the prospect will say ‘yes’. In fact, they will ask me for appointments. It does happen sometimes, but oh, think of the extra time if you didn’t have to do all that legwork!

3. The amount of ‘perfect fit’ prospects exactly matches my ability to work with them. Self-explanatory really – busy enough to earn a good living Read More

Jan 04
0

How to massively improve your sales conversions (and it’s easy)

By | marketing, sales tips, sales training | No Comments

How to massively improve your sales conversionsfun-1012681_1920
This is such an easy thing to do, but so few people do it. What am I talking about? Following up.

‘80% of sales require 5 follow up calls after the meeting. 44% of salespeople give up after 1 call.’ Source: The Marketing Donut

These are professionals – people who are paid to sell. Not very impressive is it? However, you can use this information to help you. Obviously this is an average figure, so that means some sales will need less than 5 calls and some will need more, but at least you know what is required. As a sales trainer, this is one of the most common issues I have to deal with in the classroom, so here are some practical things you can do to help you follow up better.

1. Be aware. Now you know you might have to do a lot of calls, get your head round it and just see it as part of the journey to your sale. That means you need to accept the unanswered calls, the Read More