Business and Money Tips

Often during our sales courses people ask me what's the number one skill of a successful salesperson.  It must be assertiveness. Assertiveness is not to be confused with aggressiveness.  When you push your customer to buy based on your own reason (like you have to hit your target), you are aggressive. But when you push your customer to buy because it is in the customer's interest to buy, you are assertive.   There are 3 steps to be assertive in your selling: Step 1: Teach Here you teach your prospect not just about your product's features and benefits but challenge his assumptions .  You also teach him how to take action base on what he desires. Your teaching must offer an unique perspective and must be a two-way communication .  That means asking questions and listening Step 2: Tailor After the prospect is taught on what is the right way to do things, you tailor what you have to what he desires.  It means that you have to adjust your propos

In the next 30 days, I want you to climb your own mountain (read here ).  In planning for sales for my own and my consulting clients’ businesses, I typically use the “ 5-Way Sales Leverage Chart ”. (The figures here refer to annualized figures, i.e. for one year) Target Market X Marketing Conversion = NO. OF PROSPECTS X Selling Conversion = NO. OF CUSTOMERS X No. of Transactions X Average Dollar Sale Price = SALES So from here that you can see there are only 3 things that you work in your sales planning – Your Prospects, Your Customers and Sales .  Notice that these are all the things above that follow the equal signs in the formula above.  They are all the result of something else in the formula , i.e., a result of something. Thus they cannot be changed.  The things that we want to plan to change are the things that are variable , i.e. things that can be changed.  From the above formula you see that there are only 5 variable thin

As a salesperson, you must behave like a consultant so that your prospect will see value in you.  Otherwise, you are seen as a peddler who just want to make the sale.  We all know about sales conversions: how to convert a prospect in to a client and convert a client into a life-long customer. However, there are 3 other Conversions a salesperson must make: 1.  They Must Convert Their Selling Price into an Investment  Price is a cost.  As such, it has a negative value that people will try to pay as little as possible to obtain.  On the other hand, an investment connotes a return.   People are willing to put in money into investment as they know there is a 'Return on Investment' or ROI. How to Convert your price into an Investment?  You must always show what they can get from using your product or service.  As long as that return over the investment gives a double digit return , it is considered a good investment. 2. They Must Convert their Product/Service into the Dol