In this category, you’ll find sales tips on prospecting, handling objections, getting referrals, and everything else you need to master to close more business.
Remember: every salesperson needs to “sharpen the saw” regularly, so check back often or subscribe to have future sales tips delivered right to your inbox.
Not too long ago, my husband Shane and I were in a meeting with a business partner of mine. The partner was pitching me on the idea of joining him in starting a new division. He wrapped up his thoughts and said casually, “I need to run to the restroom. I’ll be right back.”
While he was gone, Shane and I talked things through. A few minutes later, he strolled back into the room and asked us, “So, what do you think? Do you want to go to Australia?”
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On a recent call with a coaching client, we were talking about how he didn’t make his incentive trip last year because his customer service score wasn’t high enough. He had closed plenty of business throughout the year, but in the end, he just hadn’t really made an impression.
What’s the difference between merely making sales and really hitting your goals? What separates a good salesperson from a GREAT salesperson? It turns out that it goes beyond providing good service.
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On a recent coaching call with a client, we were discussing his pipeline and how he had several prospects in his funnel that simply were not moving forward. They had initially been so excited about the opportunity, but when he went to close the contracts, they began brushing him off.
He wanted to move his pipeline forward but didn’t want to seem pushy. Here’s how we got them from a maybe to a yes.
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A few weeks ago, we talked about the importance of really digging in and exploring a prospect’s P.A.I.N. once you’ve found it. But in order to find the pain in the first place, you have to get your prospect talking.
While that might seem like an easy task, sometimes you have to steer the conversation in the right direction in order to really get to the root of their problem.
After you’ve created a buying atmosphere, there are three essential questions—a “question bundle” if you will—that you can ask to really get the pain flowing.
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I recently shadowed my client, a loan officer, in a first-time home buying seminar. She had a group of prospects interested in getting pre-qualified with her, but she was bound and determined to get through every single piece of her presentation before moving on to next steps.
She went through slide after slide—I’m not exaggerating when I say she had 20 slides of testimonials—and the longer she took to get through those slides, the more her interested buyers were showing signs of disinterest. But because she was so locked into finishing her presentation, she wasn’t paying attention and didn’t see any of it.
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We all know it, and we all dread it: the lost sale. They said they wanted to buy, and now they don’t. Or a current client wants to cancel. And you can feel all the time and effort you spent going down the drain.
The knee-jerk reaction here is to immediately defend our products or services and talk about how great they are. We try to “fix it” and convince them to stay with us or to stay and buy. But what’s even more important than that is that we learn how to listen.
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We’ve all heard that “time is money,” right? Well, it’s true. And most of you probably know that determining the value of your time can be the first step in becoming a more effective professional.
You may have even tried using your hourly rate to make better time management decisions. But if you are a salesperson, you’re selling yourself short when you calculate the value of your time using the traditional “hourly rate” formula. There’s a much better way.
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