Sales people are made not born
Traditional thinking has it the other way round Many people believe that you cannot make a sales person. That someone is either born with selling skills or not. I completely disagree. I have seen mild mannered customer service reps become sales people. I have seen press minders, news anchors and apprentices all become successful at selling. Equally, I have seen those who apparently have all the right skills struggle to sell successfully. So how do you make sales people It comes down to two factors. Firstly, they have to know that others have confidence and belief in them. This gives…
Your comfort zone is a bad place to be
Is your comfort zone preventing you from achieving results? A while ago, I was called in to coach a sales person. Their manager told me that they were under performing and that they wanted to sack them. The manager was dismissive of the idea of my coaching: they had to show that they had given the sales person an opportunity to improve. Then they could be sacked. As soon as I started working with the sales person, I saw the problem. They were too eager to help. They would visit a client to discuss the design of a low-cost business…
Never forget to make a sales call again
Sales people rarely contact me when they should When I was a buyer I was often contacted by sales people at the wrong time. I would often tell people that I was reviewing my supply base for what they were offering at a certain time of the year. I would tell them to contact me then. Guess how many people actually followed up when they should? It was less than 10%. I had given people a positive response to their approach and told them when to contact me. So why did they fail to follow up on a possible lead?…
Batch processing – essential for your working day
Do you flit from task to task? Here are some interesting statistics that show just how much time we can waste when we get distracted: According to a joint report by Qatalog and Cornell University’s Idea Lab, people take an average nine and a half minutes to get back into a productive workflow after switching between digital apps. Another report found that getting side-tracked by other tasks cost an average of 25 minutes before people returned to their original task, partly because they were distracted by other tasks before getting back to what they were doing. The same article shows that many people waste one…
Seven questions that help you define a powerful personal brand
Whom do you want to connect with? You can’t build a successful brand unless you know the target audience you want to connect with. What do you offer? What’s your brand about? What do you offer that others cannot. That’s going to be a mix of your business proposition and your persona. What do you stand for? It helps if you have values. People like others to stand for the same things that they do. What makes you different? Why you? Why not someone else. Your business proposition and your values will help with this. But there also needs to…
Personal brand is so much more than building relationships
People buy from people I hear this a lot in the printing industry. In my most recent post, I covered why the personal brand is so much more important than the corporate brand. So you would think that I agree with this statement. However, I have mixed feelings about it. I am not a fan of traditional relationship selling Many sales people have told me that it is all about building relationships with the prospect. Whilst relationship building is a great skill to have, you are going to struggle if that is all you rely on. Successful print selling also…
Why personal brand is so important when selling print
Why to do many printing companies spend so much time on branding? Choose a consultant and the chances are that you will know their name but not their company name. If you are buying print you are much more likely to think of the name of your contact at the company before the company name. Mark Schaefer recently wrote a compelling post on personal versus corporate brand. His conclusions? Corporate branding really only works for large brands that are trying to create a point of differentiation. Even then, it is virtually impossible to work out how much extra revenue is attributable to…
It’s time to be accountable!
You are more likely to achieve if you are accountable What do you need to achieve on a regular basis?What special goals do you have right now? Having to report in to someone focuses the mind wonderfully! Here’s a simple accountability process Write your goals or tasks down Give the list to someone you trust Tell them you want to check in with them every week Ask them to chase you if you don’t check in That’s it! What happens if you don’t achieve what you set out to? That’s the beauty of accountability: with the right person, you can…
How to improve print sales by using a habit tracker
How long does it take to make a habit? A study from the European Journal of Social Psychology found an average of 66 days was required to form a habit. T takes even longer to turn a habit into a ritual, where you do something without thinking. Habit is important for a sales person I have seen many sales people come out of training courses promising to do new things that will help them achieve better results. However, very quickly they get bogged down with what they have always been doing. They stay in their comfort zone. How do we…
Do you want to become 37 times better at selling?
It is not as hard as it sounds! Just make a small change every day. One that makes a one percent different to your results. By the end of a year you will be 37 times better. And it works: small changes transformed the British Olympic cycling team from an, at best, mediocre cycling team to the leading medal winners in the 2008 Olympic games. You can find out more about the cycling success and the maths here. What small changes can you make to your sales habits? I’m not going to list 52 ideas, but here are three to…
