Your dream client may be an educated buyer. They may have purchased what you sell for decades, and they may have some real ideas about what they need. The fact that your dream client contact is a sophisticated and savvy buyer means you have to…

Your pitch might explain how your drill is different, the different results it produces and why you chose to design your drill the way you did. But it won’t be enough to sell your drill.

How Your Drill Is Different

Your drill might be faster…

There is a difference in acquiring orders and acquiring a client. You can acquire orders and not have acquired the client (or customer, as the case may be).

Many business-to-business sales organizations get this wrong, especially when they need…

You really aren’t looking for “a deal.” A “deal” means you gave dramatically less than was necessary to acquire what you really wanted.

Products: Any product that is selling for less than it once sold for isn’t a bargain. The demand for--or the…

Your competitors sell at a lower price. It’s tough to win when your competitors are willing to give away what they should be selling. But there is nothing you can do about your competitors.

If this is your struggle, one or more of the following…

The reason so many people want to be transactional and agree to a discount their price is that it eliminates one of the major areas of conflict in sales. If you agree to your prospective client’s price, then there is no conflict, you just say…

There are many good reasons to turn down business that you could win. But the most important reason to turn down business is when taking it would mean unintentionally changing your business strategy.

Some sales organizations end up changing their…

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.

The last thing you want to do is to