Category Archives: Performance

Selling vs. dating

A sales meeting is almost like a date. And your attitude is clearly defined by your expectation of the outcome. If you would like to build a long-term relationship, you would be more interested in the other party. And you would be genuinely curious about their lives. If you are looking for a short-term benefit (a one-night stand or one-off sales transaction), you would be more talking about yourself because you would like to cut to the chase.

Ironically, most sales trainings teach salespeople how to present themselves and talk about their companies and their products. Even in line with the trend of “problem-solving,”…

Redefining “winning” in sales

In sales, we are all obsessed with win/lose rates. We call it winning the deal when the customer decides to buy your product or service. If there is a winner, by definition, somebody has to lose. This approach makes selling a zero-sum game. I think sales can be a positive-sum game if we change the definition of winning.

Let’s do the exercise together and redefine winning…

How to improve sales effectiveness?

It is counterintuitive to refuse some large deals just because they are not profitable enough; it may sound strange to go back to market to prospect for new customers while you already have a historical customer database. It is a painful process to say no to your historical customers.To help make this shift, below are some tips I think can be helpful:

Who chooses your customers?

When salespeople lose a deal, most of the time, the reason is price, competition, lead times… in other words, losing a deal is primarily external. I have never met a salesperson telling me that it was his fault.

In fact, it is the fault of the salesperson. Not because they are not good at sales. It is because they choose the wrong customer. Let me give you an example…