In this article I continue with the sins of networking theme from my last article. The next sin is failing to establish a connection. Effective networking means actively making a connection with the people you meet. Your goal is not to meet everyone at the event. You are better off having one or two meaningful
Everyone talks about networking to improve business; however I find it to be an overused word and underused strategy by many of the salespeople and business owners I meet at so called “networking events”. Many people think of networking as going to a business event in search of business opportunities however it is much more
There is an old quote which we can adapt that goes – “There are three kinds of salespeople – those who make things happen, those that watch things happen and those who are wondering what happened.” It’s an oldie but a goodie. In fact there are generally two types of salespeople I come across in
I was guest speaker at a meeting a few weeks ago and a chap I was chatting to was telling me that after 18 years of having 3 women in the house now that his daughters had left he was having to learn how to talk again! My thought was he must have been a
A question I am often asked is “Are there natural born salespeople that we should be looking for?” My answer to this is there is no such thing as a natural born salesperson. There are salespeople with the “gift of the gab” who make good sales but they tend to lack consistency in their results.
We talked about “Farmers” and “Hunters” last time and how many salespeople fall into the comfortable role of farming their existing clients rather than bringing on new business. This occurs largely due to a lack of a clear step by step plan on how to go about prospecting. Many salespeople make the excuse they are
Recently I was questioning a sales manager about the number of new sales interviews each of her sales team did each week. Her answer was that a week probably wasn’t the right duration – more like a month. When I asked how many they were doing a month the answer was that they would be
Recently I attended a business function where one of my clients introduced me to a business consultant. Upon hearing I was a sales trainer the consultant related how he had watched a couple of dvds on sales training over the Christmas break and decided that perhaps he could add sales training to his portfolio after
A challenge I hear from many salespeople and business owners alike is that there is never enough time to keep in touch with all their clients and prospects. This in turn leads to many lost opportunities and indeed lost clients. There are just two areas salespeople and business owners need to focus their time on
In my last ramblings we looked at overcoming the “no hurry/no desire to change from the current supplier or serviced provider” obstacle. Today we will look at the key reasons salespeople don’t ask for the business. In fact surveys conducted with the fortune 500 in the States showed that 62% of presentations finish without the
