Tag archive for ‘Sales’
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Are You Selling to Phantom Buyers?
Imagine you’re running a retail shop. Twenty or thirty times a day, your front door opens and the entry bell rings “ding-ding.” You trace the path of depressions in the carpet and see products shuffled around your shelves. Most of these journeys through your store end with an invisible departure.
This is what internet marketing looks like. Marketers view internet analytics and see which landing pages are creating the best results. Marketers trace the navigation paths to see what material is being read and downloaded. But unless a visitor fills out a contact form, they are just an anonymous phantom. (more…)
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Pistachio Nuts and Sales Opportunities
Sally and I love pistachio nuts. We always race for the meaty ones bursting out of the shell. They’re the easiest, best tasting, and give the most for the least effort.
When the best picks are gone, we fish through the bowl and pick the promising nuts. They take a little more work for a little less meat.
Finally, only the tough nuts are left, the airtight sealed nuts that take more work. Out of desperation we may try cracking some to the disappointing hint of pistachio mixed with shell. -
It’s National Sales Day!
Back in the 80’s, I was fortunate enough to spend the evening with an icon in the machine tool industry at our monthly association meeting. Jay was an old school, NY sales pro in his 60’s. When I saw him, I told him I liked his tie. He immediately took it off, handed it to me, and invited me to sit with him. Jay turned to me and asked, “Do you know what day it is?” As I shrugged my shoulders he said, “National Sales Day”. As I pondered how that escaped me, he quickly asked, “Do you know what tomorrow is?” In New York harmony we both said, “National Sales Day”.
Barring Sundays, holidays, and vacations, every day is “National Sales Day.” The purpose of Sales Du Jour is to help you achieve your sales and marketing goals every day.
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How I Closed the Biggest Deal of My Life
27 years ago today, after a long, complex sales cycle, I closed the biggest, most important deal of my life. When the deal was negotiated, the buyer chose to make the acquisition. I never asked for the order; not once. (more…)
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Are We McSelling & McMarketing?
Is the quality of sales and marketing suffering at the expense of quantity? Balancing automation and metrics with customer centricity is the challenge of the decade. The quality of business relationships have become limited by volume-induced time constraint.
Henry Ford’s assembly line that delivered affordable quality automobiles in high quantities was brilliant! McDonald’s assembly line “Speedee Service System” that gave us billions of cheap, low quality, self-service burgers was not the boon of the Model T. (more…)
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How Do Your Customers Rate You, Let Me Count The Ways
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Are You Selling Like Publishers Clearing House?
The first time a “You won a $1,000,000” showed up in my mailbox, my sales and marketing mind was piqued. Opening this treasure revealed I had not won anything yet and might only win a car or digital clock with a shortwave radio that doesn’t work. The pitch unfolded to a litany of stuff I did not want, yet subliminally suggested a purchase would help me win.
Sales people spend tremendous effort and expense to pay for the first meeting. Niceties are exchanged, the timing seems right, and the coveted secret value proposition is launched with something like this: (more…)
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Buyers Want Sales Reps Kept Behind The Keyboard
Buyers would love to keep us sales professionals out of sight, tucked away behind our keyboards. Buyers have pushed sales out of the first 70% of the buying cycle because we allowed them to. We are viewed as the enemy, the opposing team. Even when the buyer wants or needs our products and services, they try to figure out how to buy without us. If we continue to acquiesce, we will never hit revenue goals or achieve our personal financial goals. (more…)
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The Next Prong in Sales 2.0 is “E2E”
Our 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Joyce led us into the auditorium for televised French lessons on Thursday mornings. The PBS instructor would begin, “Écouter – écouter — la plume — la plume. Répondre – répondre,” which translates to, “Listen, listen; the pen, the pen. Respond, respond.”Listening and responding are the essence of conversation. Quietly sandwiched between the two is understanding, for if one does not understand what they are listening to, the response is empty and vain.
Knowing the definition of the pen does not impart understanding of how and why it is mightier than the sword.
“Why didn’t you “call” me?” and “Why didn’t “you” call me?” have two different meanings. From behind the keyboard, the sentences are identical, and discerning the difference is impossible.
Today we live behind the keyboard and as a result, there is less eye-to-eye (E2E), less understanding, and relationships are dying a slow death. Heck, you can delete a relationship with one click, but we aren’t quick to hang-up on a call or get up and walk out of a meeting.
In a recent edgy Focus roundtable called “Sales SmackOff,” part of my answer to “What should the modern salesperson look like?” included video calling. Video conferencing, like the tablet, failed the first go around, but like the Phoenix and the tablet, video calling is rising from the ashes.
Our culture and economy have made physical face-to-face meetings fewer and farther between. The keyboard is easy, inexpensive, and reasonably acceptable, but at great expense. The resounding absence of eye contact has hurt the sales profession by commoditizing the sales process.
Better content, better emails, and better texting do not give the buyer what they want, need, and crave. They have their place, but people are craving real connections more than ever. People need people – a twist on an old corny song – but no truer words have ever been spoken.
E2E is a higher quality, more transparent conversation that develops better connections, relationships, and results. Phone calls come in a strong second place, but video calling, as Bell once pitched, “is the next best thing to being there.”
Video chat is the next wave of communications and will be embedded in websites and every device with a browser. Get ahead of the curve. Instead of writing an email, text, or tweet that does not convey the intricacies and nuances of E2E, setup a quick video call.
New ideas and new paradigms – change – all come with discomfort. Nevertheless, change happens and we either jump on the bandwagon, or, we fall behind.
Don’t follow the change, be the change.
Video chat with prospects and customers may seem edgy today, but video chat will become as common as your smartphone. Apple, Google, Skype and countless users already looking into other people’s eyes think so. B2B use of digital E2E is here for the taking. Here are four apps to elevate your sales game, and, don’t forget to look into my eyes the next time we talk.
FaceTime for IPad 2 & IPhone 4
Google Video Chat for Mac & PC
Think I’m looking in the wrong crystal ball, tell me what you think?
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The Craft of Rainmaking: Conversations that Win Business – Book Review
“Rainmaking Conversations” is a colorful, personal, intelligent revival of great business conversations. The tone is set at the beginning with a quote from etiquette expert nonpareil Emily Post who agreeably they call in a later reference, someone who “could have been a sales consultant.”
“Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.” – Emily Post (more…)
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