Tactics – Getting to 1st Base (Appointments)

Voice Mail – Reaching Decision Makers

This story is from a reader of Baseline Selling: Please read Page 43 ...

First Impressions

Nothing beats a great first impression and although you can recover from a ...

Getting More Appointments

The key to getting more appointments is your ability to have conversations where ...

All Set

When you're prospecting and you do finally reach a prospect, it's discouraging when ...

Five Phone Selling Traps

Many salespeople, even veterans, go through periods when they're not effective on the ...

Resistance

Every salesperson in every business encounters resistance in some part of the selling ...

Obstacles to Reaching 1st Base

When salespeople share the list of objections they most often receive, very few ...

More on First Impressions

Red Sox fans are getting a fairly positive impression of starting pitcher Julian ...

Not How to Do It

Last week I received an email from a salesperson who attempted to get ...

Saying Hello – Are You Authentic?

This may seem like a rant about nothing but I happen to think ...

Getting Your Prospects’ Attention

Last night my wife and I attended "The Drowsy Chaperone", a musical comedy ...

Dealing with No Response or Negative Response

Here's a real email thread. The names of the client and the prospect ...

Getting Heard and Getting Through

My team and I train and coach a lot of salespeople and sales ...

Most Requested

What do you think is the most frequently requested plea for help? Overcoming ...

What it Takes to Get Appointments

Without question, the most popular requests I receive each week are for help ...

Getting Your Calls Returned

About two years ago I published this tip with the most effective way ...

Sales is Like an Obstacle Course

If you sell, then you encounter obstacles every step of the way.  There ...

Maximizing Referrals and Introductions

There has been a lot written about how to get referrals. I covered ...

Tactics – Getting to 2nd Base (Prospects)

Selling Value

Last week I received many emails requesting help after my offer to send ...

Beating Your Competition

It's one thing to get the order, the account or the deal but ...

Asking Questions

On Friday evening my wife and I entered an art gallery and were ...

How to Sell More Effectively

Every salesperson wants to be more effective - unless of course they're looking ...

Stories That Make Selling Sense

Today's Baseline Selling Tip is about the lost art of story telling in ...

Beyond Listening Skills

Selling Power Magazine called last week, hoping to interview me about an article ...

The Rule of Cause and Effect

In a recent training program we focused on closing. Each attendee was asked ...

Sales Call Gone Bad

This week, in honor of Dan Seidman's new book, "Sales Autopsy" - 50 ...

When You’re Perceived as a Commodity

When You Have a Commodity Many readers have emailed me about their products ...

When the Answer Isn’t What you Expected

How often does this happen? You ask your prospect a question, have a ...

What if the Technique Backfires?

Baseline Selling Tip: What if Your Approach Backfires? Salespeople react very differently when ...

Negative Responses

A lot of subscribers have asked me to provide some advice relative to ...

Selling Commodities

I get many emails from people who are selling products that always were ...

Selling Value

Baseline Selling Tip - Selling Value I receive a great number of emails ...

Know Their Compelling Reasons

I just spent an entire week working with a sales team facing increasing ...

Asking Better Questions

My brother-in-law was asking me about how difficult it is to train salespeople ...

Asking Great Questions – Case Study

Last week I provided examples of the kinds of questions you need to ...

Overcoming Sales Objections

Reverse Selling was conceptualized by Elmer Wheeler in the 1930's and 1940's. If ...

A Good Sales Call

What constitutes a good sales call? I hear salespeople tell me, "it went ...

Asking the Question that Changes the Call

I accompanied Bob and George on a sales call yesterday and mostly sat ...

A Good Conversation versus a Great Sales Call

There is a huge difference between having a good conversation or having a ...

What Happens When You Don’t Find the Compelling Reasons

The Lexus salesperson (I'll call him Fred) called Thursday and made his annual ...

Staplers – More on Compelling Reasons

This week's article is a comprehensive version of the post that appeared in ...

Having Good Sales Calls

When you have a good meeting with a prospect, how do you feel?  ...

Prospects are Like Children

Our six-year-old son identified a STAR WARS light saber - make that five ...

How to Reach 2nd Base

The second base conversation is the least understood in the entire sales process. ...

Tactics – Getting to 3rd Base (Qualified)

Qualifying for Money

Have you been taught to ask a prospect, "...and what's your budget?" or ...

Counter Measures for Pricing Demands

I was in Chicago, presenting two talks on selling; Closing and Creating Urgency. ...

How to Justify Your Higher Price

There isn't a single sales approach, technique or rule that appeals to or ...

The Other Compelling Reasons

You can find many articles about compelling reasons in the Baseline Selling Tip ...

Overcoming Happy Ears

You or someone you know likely suffers from Happy Ears.  This syndrome is ...

Tactics – Running Home (Presenting)

When Your Prospect Goes into Hiding

How many times has this happened to you?  You have a prospect that ...

The 8 Figure Deal

Case History - Five Lessons Learned from the 8 Figure Sale Here's a ...

Your Boring Presentation – Getting it Sold

I was watching television on Friday evening and found myself crying at the ...

Great Presentations

Present Like a Rock Star Once upon a time I was a musician ...

Tactics – Scoring (Closing)

Short Window of Opportunity with Sr. Executives

This month I'll focus on timing, specifically, the short window of opportunity that ...

An Exercise to Help You Close More Sales

Try this exercise. It will immediately help you become more effective closing sales. ...

Closing Urgency

Many sales professionals believe that closing is the act of asking for the ...

Asking for the Business

My wife and I just returned home from a trip to Italy. In ...

Asking for Business Part 2

We just returned from a trip to Cancun where, once again, I was ...

When the Opportunity Isn’t Closing

I've written about how to be more effective at closing time, but what ...

More Closing Urgency

Happy New Year! The holidays, now a week in our rear-view mirror, expose one ...

More Closing Urgency – Part 2

I wrote about Closing Urgency in last week's Baseline Selling Tip. One salesperson, who ...

Getting the Deal Closed

Most salespeople could use a little help at closing time. It's not with ...

Overcoming Objections

Last week I conducted a live Baseline Selling seminar on Overcoming Objections. Today ...

Eliminating Think it Overs

An Obstacle to Closing That You Can Control There are a number of ...

Closing Objections

Last week we discussed one way of eliminating "think it overs" at closing ...

Getting From No to Yes

It's less difficult to get from "no" to "yes" than it is to ...

Get What You Want

The last two weeks I've discussed asking great questions - two weeks ago,examples ...

Effective Proposals

A salesperson called on me and had a service that was new, but ...

Getting Prospects to Do What You Want

Our five year-old son, often the subject of my Sales Management Blog, gave ...

Creating Compelling Reasons

More on Compelling Reasons Sometimes, you need to create compelling reasons when your ...

Overcoming the Think it Over

This week I received a voice mail message from a professional sales trainer ...

Overcoming Economic Objections

Unless you are in a business that is totally insulated from the economic ...

Sales is Like an Obstacle Course

If you sell, then you encounter obstacles every step of the way.  There ...

Strategy

Success with Big Opportunities

When an opportunity has an extra zero or two at the end, what ...

Death of Selling – The Raging Debate

There has been an ongoing debate about the death of the sales call, ...

Sense of Opportunity

You probably know Jeffrey Gitomer, author of the Little Red Book of Selling ...

Self Coaching for Success

I get many calls and emails asking for help - and that's good!  ...

Best Practices

Dave's Sales Best Practices What separates sales superstars from the salespeople who simply ...

Never Miss Another Target

Never Have a Bad Month Again That's right. Never miss your goal, target or ...

Home Run Derby Compared to Selling

This week, Major League Baseball held its annual Home Run Derby. A fan favorite, ...

The Importance of Practice

I spent much of Saturday and Sunday of this past weekend pitching to ...

Do What’s Not Comfortable

In every sales call there comes a point where nothing is going to ...

Stumped

A salesperson called me last week and complained that every once in a ...

How Appropriate Solutions Prevent Think it Overs

One of the topics being discussed in my Understanding the Sales Force Blog ...

Practice Makes Permanent

This past week I experienced two examples of practice that, if applied to ...

Selling to Larger Accounts

There are many approaches to selling larger accounts and in this week's Baseline ...

How to Start a Sales Call Over

Like most young children, when our son was eighteen months old he began ...

Timeline

A reader asked how much time should be spent on each base path ...

Prioritizing Your Week

It's the beginning of the week and as you review your calendar for ...

How to Sell More Effectively in a Recession

How can you sell more effectively in this economy? You'll need to perform ...

10 Tips to Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever

It's the first week of January and you have goals, a plan, some ...

Sales is Like an Obstacle Course

If you sell, then you encounter obstacles every step of the way.  There ...

Sales is Like the Greatest Game

Sales Calls are Like the 1978 AL Playoff Game Last week I read ...

The Difference Between Baseline Selling and Provocative Selling

In the wake of a recent article by the authors of Provocative Selling ...

Commodity Busters

Especially in the current economy, one danger of selling to price conscious companies ...

What Happens When You Try Too Hard?

If you are in an industry that has been impacted by the recession, ...

The Enemy in Sales

Most salespeople do not properly identify the real enemy they face each day.  ...

Motivation

The Secret to Success in Sales

What's the difference between a motivated salesperson and the rest of the sales ...

Overachieving

The most recent post to my Understanding the Sales Force Blog was the ...

Perseverance

I evaluated a salesperson who was highly regarded by his company.  The evaluation ...

How to Control Your Emotions When Selling

One of the weaknesses that plague salespeople is when they become emotionally involved. ...

Goal Setting

As we approach the end of the year it's time to do some ...

10% Improvement Could Mean a 50% Increase in Income

As we start the New Year we think about what we can accomplish ...

Urgency and Achievement Part 2

Last August I wrote this article on Urgency.  It's probably a good idea ...

Urgency and Being Under Control Part 3

Continuing with our series on Urgency, today I'd like to talk about Urgency ...

When You Absolutely Have to Sell Something

What Would You Do If You Absolutely Had to Sell Something Now? Every ...

Blizzard to Tropical/Dud to Stud in 30 Days

Last Saturday, in blizzard-like conditions, we left Boston for a much needed family ...

Best Sales Advice in the World

Last night, as I've done a couple of times before, I had the opportunity ...

Kurlan’s Law of Personal Sales Effectiveness

E=AP Effectiveness=Awareness x Persistence Your awareness is how well you know your sales ...

How to Sharpen Your Edge Using Fear

Would you be surprised to learn that, after 35 years, I experience fear ...

Focus on Revenue

We're about to enter the final quarter of the year. This is the ...

What Urgency Feels Like

Several months ago, I wrote about what closing actually feels like.  This week, ...

10 Differences Between Sales Winners and Losers

What it Takes To Win On Friday I posted an article to my ...

Are You an Eagle or a Vulture?

We attended an Eagles concert last Wednesday evening - the night before Thanksgiving ...

Selling in the Recession

It's been advertised. It's all the media wants to talk about.  It's had ...

Pick Yourself Up and Dust Yourself Off

Barack Obama uttered those words as part of his inauguration speech - "...pick ...

Mall Cop – The Sales Example

Have you seen the movie Paul Blart Mall Cop yet?  It's Home Alone ...

Finding A Way to Succeed

Strategies and Tactics are important - very important, especially in this economy. But ...

How to Translate Tiger Woods’ Experiences into Sales Success

I was reading an article about Tiger Woods in Golf Digest. The article explored ...

What Does Sleep Apnea Have in Common with Sales Improvement?

I have sleep apnea, a common sleeping disorder that affects 12 million Americans.  ...

Salespeople Must Comply with New Rules of Engagement by 7-1

This week marks the official end to reacting to the recession. If you ...

Focus, Discipline and Commitment

In these economic times, maintaining your focus, being disciplined and strong commitment are ...