Do you sell the Ser­vice or the Prod­uct? In all the sell cycles I have ever been in there is an argu­ment for lead­ing with either.  I must say that sell­ing the ser­vice and giv­ing the prod­uct away has always seemed the smarter choice but almost no one  does it that way.   A few exceptions […]

Whats that thing Mom used to say?  God gave you two ears and one mouth.   Active lis­ten­ing is the best great­est skill a sales per­son can carry in their bag. Unfor­tu­nately nearly all sales train­ing revolves around talk­ing, pre­sent­ing and plac­ing the buy­ing influ­ences into cat­e­gories. Good lis­ten­ing skills is an art form that take […]

Recently, I took the fam­ily to the State Fair. One of the great things about the fair, besides the fried Twinkies and other 1,200 calo­rie per bite culi­nary treats, are the guys that hawk their wares. If you’ve never expe­ri­enced this, it’s like one big trade show for infomer­cial stuff. These guys and gals have their […]

We know you love selling…But do you love your prod­ucts??? As a sales pro­fes­sional , when I’m watch­ing the TV, I can’t help but ana­lyze the prod­uct pitches in the com­mer­cials. I start think­ing to myself, man that guy is annoy­ing, but he is toooo smooth. Man that guy sucks,  or that guy was funny. I’m […]

No doubt about it the phone is your most valu­able tool. It is the method of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with prospects and clients. When you think about it noth­ing hap­pens in most sales jobs with­out a phone call.   You can’t build your pipe with­out it and you cer­tainly can’t close with­out it. What amazes me is how bad some […]

What hap­pened to the days when you sat down and reviewed ser­vice con­tracts for sales leads? You know, find those accounts you sold that kept renew­ing their main­te­nance because the prod­uct works so well? Nice and easy, you call them up and sell a multi year renewal for a dis­count (they win/you win, the com­mis­sion check […]

I was in my sec­ond sales job (copiers) when my manger took her team to a Zig Zigler sem­i­nar.  At one point Zig drew this on his over­head pro­jec­tor: “THIS!” he pro­claimed, “is THE secret to sales.” As I stared at it try­ing to fig­ure what the hell it was, Zig said: “Belly to Belly”. Good one, Zig.  […]

I was half way through last year (2008) and like most sales peo­ple – it was a very chal­leng­ing year. With two kids in col­lege, fail­ure was not an option. Yet, with both new accounts and sales vol­ume on the decline, my com­mis­sions were down and often miss­ing in action. I’m in the com­puter networking […]

Thanks to the Hired Gun for val­i­dat­ing that, yes, every­one does hate me. I’m start­ing to won­der if Hired Gun works where I do… Regard­less, I still have a job to do. So, on to a more  under my con­trol kind of topic. Know­ing your indus­try and the busi­ness of your prospects. I’ll spare you the industry […]

Fri­day after­noons is your best weapon Yeah I know, we’re sales peo­ple. Part of the great things about our pro­fes­sion is the inher­ent free­dom – which includes the abil­ity to screw off on Fri­day after­noons. This is so ingrained into our sales DNA that I know a few douch­bag sales man­agers that sched­ule team meetings […]