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How Latest Trends Will Hurt You Now more than ever, you need to stay tightly focused on your goal if you expect to keep your level of sales motivation up. It becomes far too tempting to start chasing after the latest trend when things are not happening at the rate you expect them. We’ve all […]

“We’re forced to close because the bank will not loan us the money we need.” Phrases like this have been heard too many times the last several years, and yes, it’s unfortunate, but here’s my perspective: “Companies don’t fail due to a lack of financial capital. They fail due to a lack of intellectual capital.” […]

People continue to say how cold-calling is dead and how in today’s environment, it no longer can be cost justified. The answer in my book is both “yes” and “no.” Let me deal with the “no” first. In the past few months, I’ve watched numerous salespeople shift all of their prospecting efforts to developing social […]

What Is Lost if Salespeople Don’t Have It? At one time or another, we have all encountered an employee who would clearly rather be anywhere than at the store serving customers. It’s unfortunate because there are few professions where a person has a chance to make a bigger impression on someone than in retail. Every […]

Recently, I found myself dealing with a retail salesperson who was attempting to explain to me the benefits of the item I was looking to buy. As I stood there listening to him, I was struck not by what he was saying but how he was saying it. It didn’t take long for me to […]

Your Pipeline Could Be Fuller Sales Prospecting — if you think it’s something you can do once a year with the same attention you pay to organizing your garage or closet, forget it! Sales prospecting is like taking a shower. You better be doing it daily. Keeping your pipeline of prospects full is no easy […]

Voicemail is either our best friend or worst enemy (or possibly a little bit of both). Is it a convenience in sales and critical in our selling skills — or just one more layer sabotaging our sales success as we try to reach clients and prospects? My suggestion is that instead of lamenting about how […]

You feel your sales team is not performing at the level they should, so you feel bringing in a sales training speaker for your next sales meeting would help solve the problem. Yes, hiring a sales training speaker may help the problem, but the question you first have to answer is, “Is the problem an […]

It’s been said that to be a successful salesperson, not only do your listening skills have to be great, but your closing skills have to be even better. However, I believe that while these skills are helpful, they are not essential. In my opinion, to be a top-performing sales professional, you must be a great […]

We all know that sales is really all about “closing the sale.” There is not a salesperson alive who does not use a variety of techniques to help them be successful with customers. However, I believe passion is the most underrated and underutilized sales tool in our arsenal, because it is too hard to measure […]