sales tips
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Stalled Sales Opportunities: When Your Prospect is Hiding
- September 13, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
This happens to every single salesperson on the planet engaged in a sales cycle of longer than one call.
“My prospect won’t return my calls”.
“I can’t get my prospect to the phone”.
“My prospect is ignoring me”.
Those of us who train, coach or mentor salespeople probably hear one of those three even more often than “I’m having trouble scheduling appointments.” What should you do when it happens to you or your salespeople?
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How to Add Value to Your Sales Offering
- August 17, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We often discuss the importance of adding value as well as how to sell and build value. Last week I was asked if I could provide an example of what added value could be.
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Busy Salespeople are Lazy Salespeople
- August 8, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Things aren’t always what they seem with your salespeople. Sometimes, the busier they are, the less they are doing! I had several conversations in the past week that explain my opening comment.
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Top 6 Keys to Closing Big, Difficult to Close Sales
- August 3, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If I think back on most of the big deals I have closed, helped others to close, or trained and coached others to close, there are several common themes we can discuss that you can incorporate into your sales and sales management world. For the purpose of this article, we will assume that the opportunities are actually closable, that your salespeople teed these deals up in an appropriate way, and that they didn’t have happy ears:
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Sales Confidence – How to Ask Any Tough Question Anytime
- July 13, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’ll share one of my secrets for asking any tough question, push back with confidence any time, challenge the CEO of any company, or even ask why your prospect wouldn’t just make the easy decision and go with either the market leading competitor or incumbent. Ready? Simply keep your pipeline stuffed – busting at the seams – no place to put the next opportunity. When you have enough opportunities in the pipeline you can say, ask or do anything – no worries. And that’s what it takes to differentiate yourself from everyone else. But when today’s opportunity is THE opportunity you’ll be afraid to say “boo” without worrying that you’ll mess up and lose the opportunity.
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Top 8 Reasons Your Biggest Sale May Not be Your Best Sale
- July 12, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Sometimes your biggest sale isn’t your best sale. When biggest isn’t best, sometimes it is because:
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Top 6 Factors for Killing a Sales Opportunity or Prospect
- March 30, 2011
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I hear this question a lot…”When should I move on?”
You have left 6 messages and haven’t received a return call.
You have a prospect and things were moving along pretty well and now you can’t get them back on the phone.
Should you move on?
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Effective or Easiest – Which Path Will Your Salespeople Choose?
- November 8, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
There are always one or two crucial turning points in every sales cycle where your salespeople must choose between asking the tough question that are called for, or saying what’s comfortable for them.
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Top 10 Reasons Consultative Sellers Outsell Everyone Else
- October 1, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Have you ever worked with salespeople that were so bad you thought, “She couldn’t close a door!”? And have you ever worked with salespeople that were so good that you thought, “She could sell white to rice!”?
There’s a good chance that the difference has less to do with their closing skills and much more to do with their ability to build a late stage relationship in the earliest stage of the sales process – the first meeting.
So what do they do? Here are the top ten things they do:
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Great Sales Opportunities That Don’t Close
- March 2, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If getting opportunities into the pipeline is the most universal sales challenge, then getting opportunities closed comes in a close second. I’m talking about prospects who aren’t ready to say, “yes” but are still “very interested”. These calls pose problems for salespeople for several reasons: