Business and Money Tips

The 16 rock-solid rules that successful salespeople follow: Great Attitude and Do More Than Asked See Yourself as ALREADY successful Don't prejudge, never assume, do not minimise yourself, your prospects or clients Goal oriented. With specific written goals for your life, career, family, social and spiritual Are Self-motivated, especially still motivated despite no success Always in control but never control people, instead give people choices Constantly practise and prepare in advance for all meetings See and talk to more people THAN ANYONE ELSE and GET MORE PEOPLE TO SAY NO TO YOU. Take action, not just talk or post Persistent and persevere Sell more than your product or service, as you understand who the customer is and what your customer really want Consistently create and sell value, rather than get stuck on selling price Understand that speed and ease are the two biggest benefits that you can deliver to a customer Act as experts, advisers, and resources to yo...

People often think that mentally strong salespeople do certain things. The truth is that mentally strong salespeople don't do certain things, and the 5 things they don't do are: Blame the company for not having products and services that are competitive in price and specifications. They know that if the company's products and services are so strong, they will sell by themselves and don't need any salespeople at all. That's why mentally strong salespeople will instead find out how to turn the product's weaknesses into strengths Look at their 'upstairs' for help. Mentally strong salespeople know that their business and strengths come from below, i.e. people that they take care of, be it their clients, support staff or sales team Give away power. Mentally strong people know that they are powerful, and they don't give away power in negotiation, meetings and daily communication. The biggest power we have is our own choice. So mentally strong salespe...

Everyone wants to earn more, but there are some people that cut their own income. I'm not referring to those employees that are lazy or incompetent, but salespeople that instead of doing limitless selling, do limited selling.  We all know that it is not the market, nor is it the competition, or the marketing budget that is limiting your sales.  It is also not your boss, your manager, your supplier, your support departments and even the finance department that is putting a lid on your sales.  Of course it is never the market or the government that is putting any strains on your sales. The only thing that limits your sales is your own thinking .  Many salespeople I come across are doing limited sales instead of limitless sales.  The 7 most common situations are: 1.   Sales Targets.   Going after sales targets that were themselves limited to growth from previous year's performance. In other words, your sales targets are determined by what you achie...

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...

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?...

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 undesira...

Salespeople are known to be a different breed of people, and top management often do not treat them the same way as they treat office people.  They say that you must give salespeople lots of freedom, just make sure that they achieve your sales targets and everything will be fine.  Is it so? From our experience in managing, training and coaching salespeople, there are 5 fetters that all salespeople must avoid if they want to be more successful: Sales as War - such a aggressive approach will imprison salespeople to constantly win battles with a 'out to kill' mindset.  If we were to examine closely, we discover that t he biggest war the salesperson need to fight is not with the marketplace but within himself . A good salesperson work on improving himself first before he can conquer the market . Sales as Entertainment .  Here the salesperson simply believes that all customers must be entertained in order to get the business.  We know that the focus on entert...

By the way, we are all in sales, regardless of whether we do selling as a career or not. For sales is not just about selling products and services but more of selling ideas.  For example, if you need your colleague to help you out in your work, you need to sell him the idea that helping you is good for him.  If you can convince him, you have made the sale. The most and often overlooked secret in sales is to be in front of a qualified prospect when he is ready to buy, not when you need to make a sale. You see when you are desperate to make the sale, you will be selfish and only look at your own interest. You will ignore or downplay the prospect's interest.  And your prospect will notice this, and he will not buy from you because he sees that you are just a sale pusher, not a problem solver. A salesperson can only succeed if he is seen as a problem solver.  For all prospects have 3 problems, money, happiness and time.  Everyone in this world wants more mon...

Ambitious people tend to give people the impression that they are too focused on their own success and will manipulate others to achieve their own goals.  Many such people, including some poor salespeople, tend to look upon every transaction as an opportunity to make a sale and get out. On the other hand, Empathy people are those that have a long term perspective. They always think of others before thinking of themselves. They do not think of closing the sale as much as they think of opening long-term customer relationships. A good salesperson balances between ambition and empathy.  Because he knows that if he is too ambitious, he will frighten away customers; if he is too empathetic, he will not be assertive enough to ask for the sale. There are 5 ways that good salespeople balances between ambition and empathy: Ask Questions and Never Make Any Assumptions .  When you ask questions and listen to the answer, you put yourself into the other person's shoes. ...

Yes, it has been getting more competitive today to sell. In the process of Pitching, i.e. multi-stage selling, every detail must be well executed if you want to clinch that coveted deal that everyone is eyeing for.  The stages involved in the sales pitch starts with a meeting, followed by a formal, stand-up presentation. Even if the prospect decides in your favour, you need to follow-up till the end, as anything can change until you sign the deal.  It should be noted that pitching is process that is cumulative, this means that each stage must be completed to the satisfaction of the other other or you will be wasting your time and effort . To pitch successfully, you need to press the prospect's hot button.  Hot button is not to be confused with Benefits or Emotions, nor is it about Fear and Force. In sales, a Hot button is a Trigger that once activated, the person will NOT go back to the original state of mind . This means that when you press the hot button, a sa...

Customers are demanding lower prices. Factories are moving overseas. How can salespeople survive?  These are tough times for salespeople. Customers are demanding more services and lower prices.  Many are purchasing directly through the internet and from manufacturers. Salespeople find themselves caught in the middle - doing more for customers, making less money and wondering about their paycheck. The solution is simple.  Salespeople Must Add Value. How?  Salespeople add value in many ways - before, during and after the sale.    These services include product availability, problem solving and technical support, just to name a few. But customers often do not realize how these services translate into dollars-and-cents value. Why? Because salespeople are generally not trained in how to calculate this value for customers. Beyond product training   Customers are interested in more than product features and benefits. They want to know how these ...

Interview any customers and they will tell you that Over-Promise Under-Deliver is the number 1 reason that they don't trust and like salespeople.  In fact, over 55% of salespeople that we trained confessed that they have to resort to Over-Promise Under-Deliver in their bid to close the sale. If you too want to have long-term relationship in business, you need to avoid Over-Promise Under Deliver at all costs.  The following are the 7 Ways: Know Your Product and Your Customer's Expectations Well  and you will only be promising what your can deliver; Lead the customer and not let him lead you .  Many a times customers lead salespeople to say yes to their requests and that's how over promise happen.  Instead a salesperson could take back control by simply asking a question like, "What do you think?" Deliver + 1 , that is, over deliver on your promise and you'll end up with "Over Promise, Over Deliver" Go the Extra Mile , better than Deliver +1...

Another brief but value-packed e-book by Andy Ferrari Norman 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...