I spend a lot of my time helping board shops with their rep issues. I spend a lot of time trying to convince these shops that they are going to have to change the way they handle their rep relationships and start treating them as partners rather than second hand citizens if they want this […]
Are You A True Salesperson?
The “It” Factor As this year ends, and the new year is almost upon us, we should all do a little soul searching, a little self-evaluation, to make sure we still have “it”. A “tune up” if you will, to make sure that we still have “it”. “It” being the thing that makes us great […]
Your PCB Customers And Respect
Times may have changed, but some things never do. The old adage that the customer is always right still stands. No matter how hard it is to accept, you have to live with that law if you want to stay in business. We all know that it is harder to respect the customer now than […]
3 Goals For Your Annual Sales Meeting
This is truly, the most important meeting your company will hold every year. It is the one time during the entire year where the team comes together and intentionally talks about business for the coming year. Besides the sales people presenting their slate of account plans, and their customer-by-customer month- by-month sales forecast, operations will […]
What The Customer Really Means When She Says…
As a sales people, one of the things that we spend a great deal of time doing is trying to interpret what it is the customer is telling us. Oh, we all can hear the customer and what she is saying, but so often, we don’t really know what she means. There seems to be […]
Listen To Your Customers, It’s Not Rocket Science
Walk with the customer. Care about him. Make sure that you know what she needs and give it to her. Make sure that he knows that you care about what will make his life easier and provide it. Look the hard sell is dead, if it ever was alive in the first place. Now we […]
Getting Your Salespeople to Act As A Team
For the most part sales people are lone wolves. One of the reasons they choose to be sales people is the independence, they like to run their own race. I have found that the best sales people are truly the loners. Think of Ricky Roma in Glengarry Glenn Ross. While all the other sales people […]
The World’s Worst Sales Person
Stay away from this person at all costs! During the course of writing this column I have always focused on great sales people. What their characteristics are; what it takes to find great sales people; how to incentivize them, how to keep them motivated and how to make sure they are kept happy, inspired and […]
A Small Rant: Get Over Yourself And Hire Some Salespeople
Man, how many times I am going to have to say this? For those of you loyal readers who have been checking out this column for years I apologize in advance and won’t blame you if you want to sit this one out because you’ve read it all before right here and yes too many […]
Creating Sales Heroes
The making of the best sales team in the world So many people spend time tearing down their sales people. Blaming all of their woes, and worries, on the very people who can make or break a company. I once worked for a PCB shop owner who insisted on having a very expensive annual sales […]