I come bearing good news. From everything I have heard, one of the hardest things for a salesperson to do these days is make appointments. We have talked about this often in this column, so many times in fact that I have made it my business to try to find a solution to this problem. […]
A Few Thoughts On Selling High Tech PCBs
Selling high technology is not always an easy thing for sales people. First, there is a credibility issue, when people see the word “sales” on your business card you can lose credibility. Listen, you could have been a director of engineering in your previous position before moving into sales; you could have been a full-blown […]
Take All The Help You Can Get
Anywhere you can get it. The best way to become good, even great, at anything is to learn anything you can, from anywhere that you can. I for one, have been fortunate enough to have had a number of mentors in my career, People, who took the time to teach me, to bring me […]
Tools For Managing Your Sales Team
Nothing happens by accident anymore, especially when it comes to sales. It used to be so much simpler; you’d buy a good directory, circle those companies that would make good prospects, call them, set up a meeting, go see them and if you did a pretty good job in that meeting you’d get a quote […]
Hiring The 21st Century Sales Person
It’s a new world out there, and what worked in sales for years just, well, just doesn’t cut it anymore. The old sales techniques like sales on the golf course, and at the bar, and friendship over common sense business, is a thing of the past. Looking for sales people today includes an entirely new […]
Marketing: Why It’s More Important Than You Think (and how to do it right)
The good news is that more companies then ever in our industry are finally figuring out that they need some marketing. I have seen this trend rise in the past few years, where once it was a rare EMS or PCB company that did marketing, to now where we are seeing more companies than ever […]
10 Tips For Making That First Meeting Successful!
Last week we talked about following up on those valuable leads to make sure that we turn them into gold. Everything was about making that first contact and getting that first face-to-face meeting with the target customer. Getting that first meeting is a huge and important step towards turning those leads into gold, but now […]
PCB Vendors vs Customers: This Is What We Do About It
I have talked endlessly about PCB customers who were not happy with their vendor’s performance and last week we talked took things from the other side of the issue and talked about why PCB fabricators have a hard time being good and productive suppliers (both articles can be accessed by scrolling to the bottom of […]
5 Steps To Turning Leads Into Gold
Companies spend a lot of money getting their sales team leads. They buy directories, they use social media, they go to trade shows, they spend a lot of money on trades shows and other marketing and some of them, the smart ones write a PCB Designers’ Guide book with I-Connect 007. These are all really […]
Turn Your Customers Into Your Salespeople
Most people will tune out when you tell them how great your company is. The will even turn you off if you spend too much time talking about all of the great things your company can do for them. And they will practically throw you out of their office when you start to pull the […]