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I think all the self-help books have a fundamental flaw. Most ask people to look in the wrong direction for success. In fact, they may even have us looking in a dangerous direction.

How often have you heard:

“Look deep inside,” “Start with the Man in the Mirror,” “Look to yourself.” Read More

The most effective way to prevent deals from stalling is to schedule an advance on every sales encounter. This is difficult, but it is still much easier than having to reengage the prospect later. Read More

When all elements seem the same, you can be the differentiator. One way to do that is to change the way you sell, quote and respond to common requests. Change the way the game is played, change the results. Read More

It is easy to feel good about letting yourself be taken out the sale. It feels right: The prospect asked for something, and we always try to give the prospect what they asked for. But sometimes it is isn’t right to give the prospect what they ask for. Sometimes it is better to do the right thing and to sell the idea that something else is needed before pricing, proposals, or presentations can be Read More

I think it’s harder than ever to keep your sales process moving forward. There are so many innovative technologies that hold promise for sales. So many social media tools that help us connect and build relationships. Unfortunately all this scatters our attention and focus and working the sales pipeline.

Here are some time-tested ideas for returning your focus to forward sales movement. Read More

So Hollywood tells us that the world is going to end in 2012. Yikes! That means we only have a couple years to meet our sales and career goals! Better hurry... Read More

Every good golfer needs to work on their follow through, and so do good sales people. You need to get past the surface where a lot of sales reps get stuck by having follow through questions for each question you ask. Read More

A competitor has recently been calling to pitch a new feature: Pop-ups when a customer opens one of your emails. The competitor seems to believe that the moment an email is opened is a good time to call the customer. I disagree.

First, if I were the customer I'd probably get freaked out. Just because I open an email from some random company doesn't mean I want to talk to them. Read More

Could it be that some salespeople are more effective than others at calling and gaining appointments with C-level executives? There is no reason that you, as a professional salesperson, cannot pick up the phone and call C-level executives, providing you have great ideas (and you do have great ideas!). Read More

Commissions are a very subjective thing, and for most sales people, a very personal thing, and rightfully so. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that the incentive plan should drive results. Of course, that assumes that you have the right plan in place. After that, you get little agreement.
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