Business and Money Tips

You know, people only take salespeople seriously when they think that the salesperson can really make a difference to their lives. Many salespeople are trained on how to ask questions to get the sale, but few are trained on how to ask 'Tough' questions that get you the sale immediately. In our sales training (eg  Selling Ice to the Eskimos  or  Winning Sales Strategies ), we often teach the following 3-stage questions: 1st stage: make a factual statement that can’t be refuted E.g. “Most sales staffs rarely meet the sales targets set for them by their company”; E.g. “Most businesses tend to do well in the initial years and falter as the years go by” 2nd stage: make a personal observation that reflects your experience and creates instant credibility E.g. “Experience from other companies has shown us that the reason for stagnant sales is not the competition but the lack of drive in the sales team.  Often the salespeople have little on-going training and most don't have their

Find out why Samsung's new models including Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Edge won't sell that much at here .  The 9 secrets that most sales trainers must cover include: How to Not Sell on Price but on Value  Attract new customers like a magnet  Increasing the average spending of existing customers without raising your price  Converting all sales objections into buying impetus  How to Sell the Impossible so as to sell ice to the Eskimos  How to Present your product and service so that your product features make sense for the buyer  Using social media tools and the power of internet marketing  Waking up hesitating customers with Irresistible Offers  How to expand your target market without leaving Singapore  On top of that, sales training must also cover the 4 soft skills: Dealing with Difficult customers using LOVE Strategies  Working pro-actively as a team and do Team Selling  How to use your brain more than 10% What makes people want to do business with you: acq

The biggest mistake in business must be to think that one plus one is two. Imagine you have 2 salespersons selling $2 million, when you hire a new salesperson, your sales cannot be $3 million, it must be higher or something is wrong.  You must achieve this thing called LEVERAGE, or SYNERGY or ever more with ever less .  Here are 7 reasons why one plus one is never two in sales: Just 1 sales idea implemented will produce  sales far more than the course fee (as we now have PIC 60% subsidy for training) Stimulated Environment , especially when you have a high flying salesperson, your entire sales team will be motivated to achieve more than ever Splash in the Market , when you do aggressive sales and marketing activities, the entire market will wake up to your offer and your sales will just have to go up Referrals from customers , when you get 5 new customers, even if you get one new referred customer from them, your customer base will expand by 20% Teamw

Yes, the  lack of sales  is not caused by the market, your competitors or even your boss.  Salespeople are the problems, and the big problem is that they don't even realize this.  By far the biggest problem is salespeople not realizing that they are the problem and justify their situation as 'everyone is also like that, right' thinking.   There are 8 ways that salespeople make themselves the biggest problem. Know them, eradicate them, and you'll be on the path to greatness in sales... Lack of Selling Skills , especially in doing  sales  follow-up  and overcoming of tough objections ; Never Leverage on the Team , especially the customer's team and your company's support team; No Follow-Through and Follow-up on Leads , leading to no leads and thus no sales; Lack of Lead Generating Activities , resulting in no  prospects  to follow-up on and thus no prospects in sales; Never Listen to the Real Needs of customers ,  thus missing on the big picture and cann

If you are now selling base on price, do not read further. We teach people how to sell on value, not price.  Sell the sizzle, not the steak, and you can close every sale and sell ice to the Eskimos.   Even if your selling price is higher than your competitors, you will still be able to sell if you know how to add value to the customer .  There are 21 ways to add value: Better Service - comes in many forms including delivery, convenience, internet assistance, telephone answering, administration support, longer operating hours, and customer service Better Technical Support Longer Credit Terms or Higher Credit Limit Unique packaging or limited edition versions that add value to your product or service Salesperson Serving the Customer - fast prompt response, entertainment, listening, patience, problem solving, courteous service and go extra mile service Top Management Serving the Customer - imagine if the Prime Minister of Singapore serves you, price is no longer a concern, righ

Many companies like the sales trainer to teach them how to look for new prospect s and close every sale .  Sales managers love to equip their sales force with many techniques to overcome sales objections .  Some bosses demand that sales trainers must impart skills that can be applied immediately so as to reap the rewards overnight.  They want their sales team to get motivated and be inspired to take action .  Without any of the above, sales training would become another of those 'ra-ra' type, i.e. all hype and no result.  To us, all sales training would cover all of the above and many more. For the specific 9 things that sales training must cover, please refer to this article  here .  (To avoid wasting money in sales training, read  here ).   (Note: PIC now pays 60% cash for your training in 3 months).  Actually the most important element in Sales Training is not any of the above but one and only one thing - Compel the salespeople to perform .  To do that, the trainer

Note: The next Successful Selling Strategies is on 4 July 2014 Friday 9 am to 12.30 pm. Details of course is at here The opposite of Effortless Sales is Stressful Sales.  Author of 'The Power of Now' Eckart Tolle says, " Stress is caused by being 'here' but wanting to be 'there', or being in the present but wanting to be in the future .  It is a split that tears you apart inside.  Indeed many salespeople are doing stressful sales, for when they are in front of a prospect, their mind is never with the prospect.  Instead their minds are thinking about how to close the prospect, how to make him say yes quickly, how to not mention any weakness the product has, and how to make time for the next appointment.  Stressful Salespeople often end up not achieving any sales at all, but they are very busy making proposals.  We called such salespeople Quotespeople.  There are 5 ways you can use WIN - W hat's I mportant N ow - in your sales: Always listen  to

Successful salespeople use a very effective sales tactic that win business over easily. This tactic is actually a process that sells without selling.  It is said that a good salesperson never sells anything, he simply creates the conditions for buyers to buy by themselves.  This is because selling is defined as professionally helping other people to buy.  The oldest and most effective tactic is Asking Questions.  You see, when you ask questions you are not selling.  You're helping the buyer to solve problems . Asking questions helps you to find out what are the real needs of your customer to determine how much they are willing to pay for a solution. But you cannot just ask a few questions and expect a sale. You need to ask the RIGHT Questions in the RIGHT ORDER .  Other than that, you also need to use questions to overcome sales objections.  It is said that the real job of a salesperson is in overcoming sales objections.  For if he cannot overcome sales objections

As I learnt from James Pickens, master sales closers ask one minute, one liner closing statements that close the sale instantly.  The top 7 such questions are: "What could I do to help you buy?"  If the customer says, "Nothing" you say, "Why?"  The customer then answers, and you overcome the objection and closes the sale If the customer says he can't make a decision, you suddenly ask him if he wants more coffee . Whatever answer the customer gives, you just say, "Don't tell me you can't make a decision; you just did." "Let me tell you something I've learned.  When you don't know which road to take in life, any road that looks good to you will do.  Isn't this proposal I showed you look good?" "Mr customer, if I give you this product free of charge, you would take it, wouldn't you?  So we're only talking about money, right?" "Mr customer, anyone can say no, because that's easy.

In our previous blog , we talk about how to use our eyes to close every sale.  Over 84 techniques were shared in our courses   How to Close Every Sale and Sales Power , today we will dwell on one tactic: Using Emptiness . When your prospect gives you an objection and he did so in a negative manner, like being sarcastic or critical, most salespeople will act in one way - react. If you understand the concept of 'no self', you will know that everyone is empty by itself.  Your prospect does not have any self-nature - no nature of his own.  There is no nature coming from his own side, what we see in him are just our perceptions of him.   He is empty, and we must be careful not to take away his emptiness and fill him with our own views of him, which will be negative because he gave us an objection .  'No self' means that whatever you see in him is just coming from you, not him.  He is empty, but that doesn't mean that he does not exist, or for us to pretend that he i

Note: The next 'Selling the Impossible' is on 16 March 2018 Friday 2 to 5.30 pm.   Details at here .  Today's article is about advanced selling strategies - how to Sell the Impossible.  Many people consider the following 10 situations to be selling the impossible: Prospect has just bought from your closest competitor Your product pricing is way too high to be considered Your salespeople has little knowledge to close the sale Prospect has no money to buy Prospect has no time to even look at your offer Prospect has just suffered a financial loss, thus no mood to talk about anything The Government has just introduced additional taxes to discourage your trade Other than pricing, your delivery lead time is too long, specifications are too uncompetitive and your credit terms are totally unattractive The morale of your sales team has just plunged to new lows due to corporate changes A new very aggressive competitor has just entered your market with a 50% price cut

We know it is the job of the salesperson to close sales, but many salespeople are actually closing files instead of closing sales .  Worse still, they are unaware of this because they think they're just 'doing my job to respond to customer's request'.  The 7 instances where salespeople close files are: Being Impatient with No Answer from the Client .  Usually salespeople will, after a few no answers from the client, get impatient and just want a quick answer.  They say things like, "I need your answer now as I must book my schedule which is getting full now".  The client will, 99% of the time, simply reply, "Since you're so busy, why not you go ahead with your schedule and leave me out for now?"  The next time you have such a situation, do not press for an answer, for you know that the client has no answer for you , otherwise, he would have replied you long ago.  Instead offer help to the client , and you'll leave the door open instead of

Yes, your eyes are your most important organ in your body.  Smart salespeople use their eyes to get customers to say yes to their proposal instantly.  This is what you do: You ask your customer a question, like, "Which product fits in best with what you had in mind?" Then you lower your head slightly and get a few degrees below the eye level of the customer As the customer considers your question, you slowly bring your head up, almost unnoticeably, so that your eyes are on the same level as the customer's eyes At the exact moment when the customer starts to make a sound, you move your eye level up a few degrees above the customer's eye level At this point, something magic happens. The customer will automatically raise his head and eyes to meet your eyes Before you realize it, your customer gives you a positive response.   Scientists said that the above action produces a psychological encouragement to the customer to agree with whatever you said, because

I'm sure that there are times in your work or life that you have a person that just doesn't like anything that you do.  In fact, he hates you, for whatever reason that may be.  If you are in sales, this person will never pay attention to your sales presentation and will just give you objection after objection. The next time you're faced with this difficult situation, just put on a serious face .  Then ask that person in a most sincere and humble way, "Please, Mr Customer, would you please do me a great favour? "  The customer, out of natural human curiosity, will automatically say, "What?" You would then ask this unfriendly customer to do something trivial, or something easy to do, like close the door, lend you his pen, or get you a glass of water.  Once the customer obliges, something wonderful happens.  The hostile customer will, very subconsciously, instantly feel powerful and useful, in his own mind.   The moment he feels this powerful way he w

What's the secret to salespeople success?  I believe it is to BE a salesperson. Salespeople are not quotes-people because there is no money to be made in quotes.  Yet I see many salespeople happily giving out quotes, tenders and proposals with NO INTENTION OF CLOSING them.  Many people think that sales is a number game, when in fact it is a quality numbers game .   If you do submit a quote, you have to do follow-up until you close the sale.  You cannot just submit a quote and expect to close it.  Some salespeople think that by submitting a quote, they are putting one foot into the door.  This is far from true.  Companies receive lots of quotes everyday, those that don't stand out won't get any chance of being getting close to the door. So my friend, the next time you are asked to give a quote, ask yourself this question: are you going to do all the follow-up to close the deal?  Do you have a winning quote or your quote is just me-too?  Do you understand what the cli

With the PIC Grant , companies can claim up to $10,000 a year on internal training, i.e. their own people conducting training for their own people.  A good example would be HR Department doing Induction for new staff.  Other than that, it has become something as common as buying stationery when companies send their staff for external training .  This is because under the PIC Bonus scheme, companies get 160% of what they spend on training.  Before you sign up for your next public course , or get the trainer to come to your premise to conduct an in-house training , make sure that your next training program has the following 5 key attributes: Mix New School with Old School .  If what the trainer is doing is to replay old school principles, there won't be much value in today's context as the world is changing rapidly.  A phrase we often use in our training in describing what needs to be today in 2014 is a "time tested tactics blended with time relevant concepts". Si

Yes, the lack of sales is not caused by the market, your competitors or even your boss.  Salespeople are the problems, and the big problem is that they don't even realize this.  By far the biggest problem is salespeople not realizing that they are the problem and justify their situation as 'everyone is also like that, right' thinking.  There are 7 ways that salespeople make themselves the biggest problem. Know them, eradicate them, and you'll be on the path to greatness in sales... Lack of Selling Skills , especially in doing sales follow-up and overcoming of tough objections ; Never Leverage on the Team , especially the customer's team and your company's support team; No Follow-Through and Follow-up on Leads , leading to no leads and thus no sales; Lack of Lead Generating Activities , resulting in no prospects to follow-up on and thus no prospects in sales; Never Listen to the Real Needs of customers , thus missing on the big picture and cannot clos

Yes, everyone is a salesperson, because selling is moving people. Most people are in non-sales selling, that is, they are not doing sales as their main job, like an insurance agent. But most people are in jobs that involves communication, influence and persuasion, and these are nothing but sales.  We at Asia Trainers call these sales job as Moving People. Myths and Truths of Moving People: Moving people is not about getting your way with others but about helping others get their way . You too will get your way when you help others get their way.  As what Zig Ziglar said, "You can get anything you want in your life as long as you help enough other people get what they want".  Moving people is not about how much conviction you have, but how much people feel about your conviction.  As what Andy Ferrari Norman said, it is not about convincing people but about conveying your ideas in ways that make people be convinced by themselves. Moving people depends more on the creativ

The 7 Sales Secrets that few teach you:  1.      Sales is not a function, a goal or a number but an outcome, the outcome is customer satisfaction .  Regardless of how solid your product or service is, nothing happens without a sale.  If you did not make the sale, there is no customer satisfaction but instead lots of frustration for salespeople! 2.       Today customers are all suffering from  Frazzled Customer Syndrome (FCS):  a state of  extreme exhaustion , that’s why they are not returning your call and give you the cold shoulder.  They are extremely checked out because of heavy workload, too many choices, rapidly changing market and past bad experience with salespeople.  How can we blame them for this? 3.       The result: customers keep you at a distance, brush you off, dismiss you entirely and stick with the status quo, no matter how undesirable the status quo is. Once you can empathize how customers feel, you can help them to improve and get out of this frazzle trap.