Best advice to salespeople

Straight to the point…I don’t like the tone of some (many indeed) posts on LinkedIn. It is the tone that tells you what to do and what not to do. The tone keeps giving you advice, quotes or books to read, or training or seminar videos to watch. And salespeople are a large target groupContinue reading “Best advice to salespeople”

How to be selective?

Selectivity has been the foundational element of trade since the very beginning. And in today’s current terms, it is the core of commercial effectiveness. Being selective about the geography where you want to sell, market segments, type of customers, offering, pricing…

Yet, it is not that easy to implement. Because selectivity is the product of deep thinking, analysis, and reflection…and sometimes intuition and feeling, it requires a certain level of clarity.

On the other hand, without being selective, getting lost in a commercial activity is very easy. So, how to become more selective?..

Coaching in Sales Management (Part 1)

First, let me share one thing about coaching. I can say that 90% of people around me who talk about coaching do not know what professional coaching is. With all their good intentions, they mix coaching with advising, mentoring, counseling, leading, guiding, etc.

… It requires time and effort. It might be a painful process for the manager when working under pressure to deliver results on time.

Handling Objections

One of the leading sales training topics is “handling objections”. In this part, we discuss potential scenarios where the customer would come up with some arguments for not buying the product or the proposed service. And we teach the salesperson how to handle such situations and come up with additional arguments and explanations to convince the customer.

Firstly, I was curious whether customers/buyers were trained to develop objections. I always had a hard time understanding that part. Why would they even keep talking to the salesperson if they had valid objections for not buying?

STOP for Sales Effectiveness

As a salesperson, the most valuable resource you have is time; your success highly depends on how you spend it. Are you operating in the right geography and the right market segment? Are you targeting the right customers with the appropriate solution and the most profitable products? Are you chasing the right deals? 

The answers to those questions give a great deal of information about a salesperson’s effectiveness. But…

Love what you do…but how?

Confucius made it clear more than two thousand years ago: “Choose a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life”. It turns out that it is not easy as we keep reminding ourselves of the same phrase for centuries. Moreover, when we think about “the job we love,” selling is not necessarily at the top of our list…