Posted on Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Sales Skills are Transferable—You Can Sell Anything!

In my years as a sales coach, I’ve seen this situation play out a million times: A salesperson gets a new job and doesn’t want to call on prospects until they feel like they’ve learned absolutely everything there is to know about the product or service they’re selling.

They feel like making those calls would be “wasting” a lead on someone before they become “good enough” at their job. That is 100% the wrong way to approach things. Doing so will pretty much guarantee that you never become a top producer.

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Posted on Monday, August 17, 2020

Begin with the End in Mind (in Sales)

Creating good time management habits can feel exhausting. If it’s something you’ve struggled with for a while, you may find it hard to know where to start.

In Stephen Covey’s world-renowned book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he suggests using a powerful tip: Begin with the end in mind. What does this mean for a relationship-based salesperson, though? And how can you apply that principle to transform the way you think about your calendar and your tasks?

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Posted on Monday, August 10, 2020

Using “Try Before You Buy” with Professional Services

If you sell a tangible good, you likely have the opportunity to let a prospect “try” before they “buy” from you. “Yes sir. You can test drive the car for the weekend.” “Absolutely ma’am. Take the dog home to meet your kids!” But what if you sell something that can’t be picked up and held?

For those of us selling a professional service, it can feel difficult to provide a prospect with the chance to test-drive what we offer. But there is a way to use this close effectively, no matter what you sell.

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Posted on Monday, July 20, 2020

Tips for Conquering Call Reluctance

Of all the reasons salespeople come to me for coaching, call reluctance is one of the most common. Every single salesperson I know—myself included—has suffered from it at some point or another.

It’s important to realize that call reluctance is a real, legitimate feeling. You’re not making it up, and you’re not crazy for feeling this way. You can get past it, and it doesn’t have to be something you fight forever. I’ve got a few methods to help you kick call reluctance for good.

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Posted on Monday, July 6, 2020

10 Tips for Memorizing Your Sales Script

Most salespeople love presenting but feel most comfortable when we loosely know an outline and then wing it. When it comes to following the company presentation or memorizing a sales script, we can feel constrained.

I hear salespeople complain all the time that they’re “bad with names” or they can’t work from a script. I say, nonsense! You just need to train yourself that you can. The following ten tips are part of my toolkit for becoming a master of sales script memorization.

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Posted on Monday, June 29, 2020

Creating a Simple Sales Activity Tracking Sheet

What distinguishes average salespeople from top-performers? Regardless of education or experience, success is directly tied to self-discipline. Above all, top-performing salespeople know their numbers.

Tracking sales activity might not seem fun. It doesn’t give you the euphoric feeling that closing a deal can; tracking your numbers doesn’t have an immediate pay-off. It can take months (sometimes years) before you’ll reap the rewards of it, but if you want to rise to the top in your industry, then you have to know your numbers.

Here’s the good news: keeping track of your sales activity doesn’t need to be complicated.

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Posted on Monday, May 18, 2020

Sell with Empathy (Especially during a Crisis)

I’ve heard this from a lot of salespeople lately: How do I still sell right now? I know trying to sell during a crisis has put us all in uncharted waters, but we have to keep moving forward.

This current crisis feels different because COVID-19 has affected everyone. But we can still learn lessons from other nationwide tragedies (the aftermath of 9/11, the Great Recession) or the more common regional natural disasters and industry-specific downturns that can be devastating for our clients.

We can start selling again. But we need to approach it the right way.

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