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 […]
Taking Stock Of Your Rep Network
Do you feel you are getting everything out of your rep team that you should be? Do you a full network of sales reps, reps all over the country yet you are just not getting much out of them? How about these problems? Try these on for size: You keep hiring new reps but you […]
A Day In The Life Of A Salesperson
This will be a sales person who has a territory away from the company, so she is operating out of fully equipped home office where she has everything she needs to conduct her business. Her required reporting is a weekly status report of her activities during the week as well as her plan for the […]
Upselling: The Magic Road To Profitability
Everyone upsells, it’s the best way to increase your margins. The famous, “want fries with that?” is an upsell. Super sizing is upselling. That maintenance plan on your washer and dryer is upselling. That rust coating on your car, whatever that was…was upselling. Notice how when you buy a new laptop for $600 it’s still […]
What A Really Good Sales Manager Does
Okay, you’re the sales manager for a 15 million dollar board shop located in the Midwest. Your sales team consists of 6 direct regional sales people and five independent sales reps; together they cover the entire U.S. and Canada. Besides managing the sales team, you also handle the company’s marketing and yes, you are also […]
What’s Wrong With Just Sticking To The Plan?
It’s amazing how much can get done when you decide to stick with it Another year another strategic plan…or worse yet another month another strategic plan. Does this sound familiar to you? Well it does to me. The most difficult thing to do when you’re a strategic consultant like I am is to make sure […]