The Sales Blog
This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I've been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in … [Read more...]
Today, I am disappointed. Sad, really. My phone rang. I answered. It was someone who works for me. She said, “[Salesperson] is on the line. She insists she has an appointment with you at 2:30 PM.” I live on my calendar. How could I have been so careless? I open my calendar … [Read more...]
There’s a lot of confusion about what a cold call is and what a cold call is not. Whenever I write about cold calling I get emails and comments from people who insist the cold calling is dead. A few days ago I even had Jeffrey Gitomer comment to that effect on this post. But I … [Read more...]
There is a reason your contacts sometimes don’t want to allow you to develop relationships with contacts in other parts of their business. There are also reasons they sometimes don’t want you to develop relationships with the people north of them on the organizational chart. … [Read more...]
Michael Port is a New York Times best selling author, a speaker, and an entrepreneur. I had a chance to spend some time with Michael at Chris Brogan’s ImpactNext event in New York City, and I asked him to step In the Arena to talk about the Red Velvet Rope Policy, the hero … [Read more...]
This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I've been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in … [Read more...]
Selling well is a balance between conflict and collaboration. The more—and faster—you can move away from conflict and towards collaboration, the better. But conflict is built in. Conflict at the Start The conflict begins at the very onset of the relationship. You want a … [Read more...]
When I teach undergraduates my Personal Selling course (a survey on business-to-business sales), I begin the class by asking the students to tell me what words they would use to describe salespeople. Without failure, I hear words like “greedy,” “selfish,” and … [Read more...]
One of the keys to prospecting effectively is having a differentiated, compelling idea. You get in because you have some way that you can help your prospective client with some new or better outcome. It’s your ideas that make you worth meeting with (and it’s your lack of … [Read more...]
You think you need your power sponsor to agree that you are the best person to add to their management team, that your solution is best, and that they should move forward with you. Not so fast! What about the rest of the organization that is going to be impacted by a decision to … [Read more...]
Leaving A Trail of Negativity Behind You