Tactics – Getting to 2nd Base (Prospects)

Last week I received many emails requesting help after my offer to send along scenarios where readers were “stumped”. This email should benefit most readers:

“Dear Dave,

I currently work for a manufacturer that makes high end metal signs, I

It’s one thing to get the order, the account or the deal but it’s totally another thing to beat the competition for the business. But seller beware. If your idea of beating the competition is producing a lower price, the

On Friday evening my wife and I entered an art gallery and were followed around by a very young sales clerk. Each time we looked at a painting, she felt compelled to tell us who the artist was, where he

Every salesperson wants to be more effective – unless of course they’re looking for early retirement. A salesperson made a call on me that serves as a good example of what most salespeople could do better.

He was actually selling

Today’s Baseline Selling Tip is about the lost art of story telling in sales. I receive many compliments from readers of Baseline Selling about the stories in my book. The two most talked about stories are the Tennis Story on

Selling Power Magazine called last week, hoping to interview me about an article I wrote in my “Understanding the Sales Force Blog” back in January. I’ll give you the gist of it here:

Salespeople with good listening skills will hear

In a recent training program we focused on closing. Each attendee was asked to identify an account they felt was “ready to close”. Not surprisingly when asked “what the compelling reason for action” was many were unable to clearly identify

This week, in honor of Dan Seidman’s new book, “Sales Autopsy” – 50 Sales Horror Stories I’ll share my own sales horror story – my sales call gone bad – and the lessons that can be learned from it.

Trent

When You Have a Commodity

Many readers have emailed me about their products or services that are now being perceived as commodities. Baseline Selling has a very detailed section of the book devoted to commodities. I call the section Commodity

How often does this happen? You ask your prospect a question, have a pretty good sense of what the answer should be, and their answer is not what you expected? For most salespeople it happens a lot. I have written