From the category archives:

Sales 3.0

5 Ways Salespeople Can Improve Their Change Management Skills

March 10, 2010 Sales 3.0

1. Identify and Build the Team
In many cases, salespeople lose more deals to the prospect deciding to take no action than they lose to competitors. Selling is always about change, and change is scary. Making the case for change in any organization requires building the team that can help you sell the change and who [...]

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2 Ways Salespeople Can Negotiate Better

March 9, 2010 Sales 3.0

This post isn’t about tactics. There are excellent books on negotiating tactics, including Getting to Yes, by Roger Fisher and William Ury, and one of my favorites, The Street Smart Negotiator: How to Outwit, Outmaneuver and Outlast Your Opponents by Harry Mills. You should be more than familiar with common negotiation tactics so that you [...]

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6 Ways You Can Be A Better Storyteller in Sales

March 8, 2010 Sales 3.0

1. Collect Great Stories
One of the first ways to become a better storyteller is to collect great stories. Your life, including your sales life, is full of stories. Many of these stories contain the lessons that you have learned and the ideas that have proven the most useful to helping your clients succeed. Sometimes we [...]

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3 Ways to Differentiate Yourself and Your Offering in Sales

March 7, 2010 Sales 3.0

1. Possess the Foundational Attributes
The first and most important thing to be able to differentiate is you. It answers the question: “What makes you different, and why should spend time with or buy from you?”
There were two comments on this week’s post 2 Ways to Create Influence and Persuade Others that speak to this point. [...]

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3 Ways to Improve Your Ability to Diagnose for Salespeople

March 6, 2010 Sales 3.0

To diagnose in sales is to be able to discover the root cause of your client’s business problem or challenge. It is the ability to recognize what is undesirable by the signs and the symptoms. But to diagnose is not to prescribe the cure—that is a very different outcome!
1. Suspend Your Judgment and Be Open [...]

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7 Ways to Improve Your Business Acumen for Sales

March 5, 2010 Sales 3.0

As we have moved from product sales, to solutions sales, to business improvement and acceleration sales, the skill sets for success in sales have changed. To be effective now, salespeople need to be great businesspeople; they need to understand how to create business results for their clients.
Business acumen is too rare in sales. We spend [...]

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7 Ways To Be Better at Prospecting

March 4, 2010 Sales 3.0

1. Consistency Counts: Prospect Daily!
Salespeople acquire new clients, and to do so, they necessarily open relationships. Prospecting is the art of opening new relationships. The new business opportunities that later turn into sales are initially identified through prospecting, making prospecting the lifeblood of sales.
The first way to improve you’re your prospecting results is to acknowledge [...]

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4 Ways to Be a Better Closer

March 3, 2010 Sales 3.0

Closing is the art of gaining of commitment. Some commitment gaining occurs at the end of the sales cycle. But more often there are many smaller commitments that allow the sale to move forward. The industry has historically placed far too much emphasis on the closing event at the end of the sales cycle and [...]

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2 Ways to Create Influence and Persuade Others for Salespeople

March 2, 2010 Sales 3.0

1. Be Someone Worth Following
Real influence has nothing to do with tips, tricks, or gimmicks. There is nothing that you can do in 8 minutes that has anything to do with real influence. While you may be able to persuade some of the people some of the time, there is no shortcut for the kind [...]

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4 Ways To Improve Your Communication Skills for Sales

March 1, 2010 Sales 3.0

1. Learn to Be an Exceptional Listener
The first step to learning to communicate well is to know that listening well is a far more important skill than speaking well. And it is far more rare. Truly listening, without your thoughts wandering or planning your response, is an act of caring. It is immediately felt and [...]

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