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Business cards are a surprisingly effective networking tool. Even if your company provides you with standardized business cards, it may be worth your while to craft a card of your own to distribute. Having a few hundred of your own cards printed is actually quite cheap, if you avoid extremely fancy design features. In most […]

When you speak with prospects on the phone, they can’t tell how you’re dressed or what you look like. All they have to go on is your tone of voice and the actual words you’re saying. And that means that tone of voice during a cold call is at least as important as body language […]

Sales 101: New Territory Whenever you start a new sales job or move to a new region, odds are that you’re looking at a territory that’s equally new to you. Breaking into a new sales territory is a daunting task because it means you’re starting your pipeline from scratch. At best you’ll have a few […]

One of the best ways for a sales manager to see how well his salespeople actually sell is to go along with them on a few appointments and observe them in action. These ride-along can either be highly productive or a total disaster, depending on how you as a sales manager handle the situation. First, […]

Most sales jobs use one of three compensation strategies: a base salary only, a base plus commission, or a commission only compensation plan. Companies love pure commissions compensation because they only have to pay salespeople based on the amount of revenue they bring in. This is especially helpful to companies when the economy is down […]

Emotions help in selling If you’ve been in sales for awhile you’re probably very familiar with the saying, “Features tell, benefits sell.” Features are the things that your product does, while benefits are the ways that those features will help your customers. In other words, features are logical and benefits are emotional. And sales is […]

How to Make a Daily Schedule: Drawing up a schedule and sticking to it is a good idea for anyone, but it’s especially helpful for salespeople. Most salespeople have to juggle multiple job responsibilities, from the core sales activities to things like filling out paperwork and attending company meetings. Scheduling is the key to getting […]

Few things will turn off a prospect faster than hearing a salesperson recite stiltedly from a phone script. But that doesn’t mean that using a script equates to poor cold calling. A badly written script is a disaster, all right, but a good script can boost your cold call success. In a good, really entertaining […]

Every sale goes through the same basic cycle, from prospecting for leads all the way through to asking for referrals from your new customer. But the length of this cycle can vary greatly depending on the product or service you’re selling, along with a few other factors. In most cases, the more expensive a product […]

Some salespeople are lucky enough to be selling unique products that have few or even no competitors. However, most salespeople find themselves in crowded marketplaces with a dozen or more companies competing for a finite pool of customers. If that describes your situation, you need a way to stand out and offer something that your […]