Asking the right questions will lead to sales I have a question for you. Or actually, more than one. Are you asking the right questions? When you are face to face with a customer, especially a new prospect, do you have a list of the right questions to ask? Are you like a good lawyer, […]
The All Important Intensive Customer Survey
Whether you are in the business of board fabrication or board assembly, the fact is that you are not building your own products. You are building your customers’ products which means that you are in the business of helping your customers be successful. The better your services are, the better their products will be, and […]
Manage Your Sales team Like You Would Manage A Sports Team
Managing a sales team is just like managing a sports team. You strive to put the best team on the field and then manage them to greatness. It means just like a sports team you must deal with all the team members as individuals figuring out how to handle each of them from the prima […]
Five things Contract Manufacturers Can Do Right Now To Get More Business
Everyone is struggling to fill their factories these days, as the fight for more business heats up. It used to be that contract manufacturers had a good solid base of good customers, they could depend on year after year. Many of them were satisfied to pick up a couple of customers a year as their […]
Contract Manufacturing: Winning Those Big Accounts
Contract manufacturing is a service not a product. As CEMs, we are actually building someone else’s product, someone else’s baby. Our customers are putting the fate of their companies in our hands. If we build the product incorrectly our customers will be the ones to pay. In the end they are the ones who have their name […]
Because Prospecting Is What Salespeople Do
Get out there and do it now! I know you hate to prospect and you hate to make cold calls, so this is what we have to talk about today. Whether you like it or not. To help us, there is a great book by Mark Hunter called High-Profit Prospecting a trade paperback published by […]
Customers Still Deserve Your 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 […]
That Annual Sales Meeting
Last week, we talked about preparing for 2018 by developing account plans and forecasts. We mentioned that this would be presented, viewed, and discussed by the entire management team at the annual sales meeting that would be held in January of 2018. This week, we’ll discuss that annual sales meeting. This is truly, the most […]
Going The Extra Mile
…and avoiding getting the door shut in your face We know it’s tough getting appointments. It’s even tougher getting people to answer the phone; and then once you do get that appointment or that phone call you run up against a stone wall made up completely of attitudes of people who do not want to […]
Salespeople Are The Voice Of The Customer
So as that voice, make sure you get it right! One of the greatest responsibilities we have as sales people is being the voice of the customer. This means that we must strive to always relay the customer’s message truthfully and most importantly accurately, because, very often the future of the relationship between your company […]