On your marks. Get set. Prospect! Prospecting is the oxygen that fuels the sales fire. It is the ignition point that allows us to get in front of prospective buyers. Great sales people like great athletes do not leave prospecting to chance. They make sure that making prospecting sales calls features regularly in their weekly sales activities. Many experienced sales people make sure they do two or three 2 hour […]
100 Prospecting Sprint Read More »
Creating an effective prospecting programme Many sales people, especially those new to sales, often take it personally when a prospect says ‘NO’ and fail to persist with their prospecting efforts while others turn prospecting into stalking not knowing how to engage a prospect effectively. Either way these people are failing to favourably and persistently position themselves with prospects thus limiting their sales opportunities further. In sales there is a fine
Would YOU listen to YOU? Read More »
How many times have we all been tempted to click on a link that offers us ‘the secret of sales success’ only to find a website or article that is promising a silver bullet ‘if only you do this one thing’ which doesn’t help us at all? The business of sales excellence is like the diet industry, full of tempting offerings that lead us nowhere fast. It is only natural
The real secret to sales success Read More »
Here is a senior manager’s account of a real life, cringeworthy example of when a so called ‘experienced’ senior consultant completely stuffs up a prospective client meeting despite the young graduate, a millennial from the vendor’s company, sitting in the meeting with them instinctively knowing better and trying to do the right thing by the client and the company: “One of the graduates from our team went out with a
Cringeworthy: how arrogance and ‘seniority’ destroy sales Read More »
Sales Trend 1 of the Barrett 12 Sales Trends for 2018 Report is our Selling Better Manifesto. It talks about the Selling Better Movement and it explains why we have started it. We have created The Selling Better Movement with the hope it will help people understand that there’s a better way of doing business. A way in which we can all be prosperous. The Selling Better Movement is an
Sales Trend 1 – The Selling Better Manifesto Read More »
Do you have clear criteria to assess the relevance and risk of every tender or RFP (request for proposal) that comes into your business? Do you know how much it will cost you in terms of your time, effort, people resources and money to respond to a tender or RFP? Do you know what the probability of you winning a tender or RFP is? If you cannot answer these questions
Why you shouldn’t respond to every RFP and tender Read More »
The world, more specifically the human world, is changing and moving at lightning speed, adapting and evolving, and getting more complex by the day, to the point where it is becoming too overwhelming for many. Just when we need to be able to really think about and manage complexity, there is a flight to the simplistic to just cope with the day to day. Simple solutions, easy fixes are called
12 Sales Trends for 2018 – Welcome to the State of Flux Read More »
Freakonomics Steven Levitt, the co-author of Freakonomics, SuperFreakonomics, Think like a Freak and When to Rob a Bank, defines thinking like a freak as: “…putting away your moral compass and not worrying about what the answer “should” be, but focusing on what the answer really is. It means thinking hard about causality. It means going beyond the obvious to consider all the possibilities — but still being willing to accept
We can all benefit from thinking like a ‘freak’ Read More »
Investing quality time with prospects delivers better margins and displaces your competitors. One of the time-tested methods for surviving a tough or slow economy is to home in on prospects who match the profile of your most successful customers. This may sound like Sales 101 but it’s worth your attention right now because when times get tough, the opposite happens – namely, desperation can make it tempting to pounce on
Hone your targeting skills to win more sales Read More »
Networks of well-connected people are critical in business and societies. Cultivating a network of trusted and reliable colleagues, peers, friends and associates is key to a healthy society. Strong, resilient and trusted relationships need to be found, formed and forged over time. The likes of LinkedIn, Facebook and other digital platforms have made it much easier to search for and connect with relevant people, be they prospective clients, contractors, new
Networking events – traps & opportunities Read More »