Sales Articles

Business » Sales | By Lee Salz @ Wednesday, 7th May 2008 @ 2:52 PM

Candidate screening is one of the most difficult tasks that recruiters and managers face. Most will tell you that screening sales talent is the toughest of all. Why? Sales people are trained in the art of persuasion. They know how to provide the desired responses to the questions. Even more daunting is when you are interviewing sales people that worked for a competitor. These sales people know the language and industry buzz words making it even more challenging to screen them. Fret not! It is po... more...

Business » Sales | By Chris Marshall @ Wednesday, 7th May 2008 @ 11:14 AM

The business community continually changes and ownership of businesses change hands as smaller entities are swallowed up by bigger corporations. We hear about it all the time in the news, but yet very few people can name a example of monopolistic competition, or realise what the definition monopolistic competition is. This article gives a brief insight into the definition monopolistic competition and monopolistic competitive firm. The definition monopolistic competition is firms which in ... more...

Business » Sales | By Lee Salz @ Monday, 5th May 2008 @ 12:35 PM

In the 70's and 80's, there was a great television show called "Quincy." This show revolved around a coroner who investigated deaths. Jack Klugman, a.k.a. Dr. Quincy, performed an autopsy on what appeared to be a death by natural causes and realized that the actual cause of death was murder. Once that determination was made, the rest of the show was focused on finding the bad guys and identifying the motive, not necessarily in that order. Early in my career as a sales m... more...

Business » Sales | By Lee Salz @ Monday, 21st April 2008 @ 1:54 AM

The other day I was working out in the gym when a guy asked me to spot him on the bench press. For those of you not familiar with the term "spot," it means to watch and assist the lifter if they need help. Of course, I agreed to do this. As is customary when spotting, I asked him how many reps (number of times lifting the weight) he planned to do. He looked at me very puzzled and said he didn't know. Humorously, I followed that with asking if he expected to do it once or a hundred t... more...

Business » Sales | By Melissa Vokoun @ Tuesday, 15th April 2008 @ 7:52 AM

In the days when customers would walk through your door, the first thing an entrepreneur would do is introduce themselves. "Hi, I'm John, what can I do for you today?" A warm handshake, a smile, and the customer relationship was established. This relationship is something that any salesperson will tell you, is sacred. Without this relationship, business will not be done and little will be accomplished. But in today's global marketplace, how do we establish that sal... more...

Business » Sales | By Lee Salz @ Monday, 14th April 2008 @ 2:04 AM

You have been chasing this account for six months and feeling optimistic as the buying process is coming to a conclusion. The sale is between you and two other firms. The competition is fierce, but you feel you are ahead. At 11am, the Procurement Agent asks for three references to be provided to her by the end of the day. In a panic, you send a company-wide email in search of these referenceable clients. At 4:58pm, you get the three references from your colleagues and quickly send them out to th... more...

Business » Sales | By Melissa Vokoun @ Wednesday, 9th April 2008 @ 3:04 PM

"Happy people sell more," is a cliche that every manager hears but doesn't really listen to. Good morale seems to have a trickle down effect and when a manager is happy, everyone is happy. But to boost sales, everybody has to be happy even when the manager is not. Morale building through employee coaching has to be a real commitment by managers and owners alike. When you see morale translated into sales it is easy to see why this is so vital. When you see dollars flooding into ... more...

Business » Sales | By Bob Janet @ Wednesday, 9th April 2008 @ 9:08 AM

Before the Civil War, Edmund McIlhenny operated a sugar plantation and a saltworks on Avery Island, Louisiana. Yankee troops invaded the area in 1863 and McIlheey had to flee. When he returned in 1865 his sugar fields and saltworks were ruined. One of the few things left were some hot Mexican peppers that had reseeded themselves in the kitchen garden. McIlhenny who like many in the south were living hand to mouth, including eating foods with very little taste. McIlhenny starte... more...

Business » Sales | By Bob Janet @ Monday, 7th April 2008 @ 5:27 PM

A man walked into the Fairbanks, Alaska, Nordstrom department store with two snow tires. He walked up to the counter, put the tires down and asked for his money back. The clerk, who'd been working there for two weeks, saw the price on the side of the tires, reached into the cash register and handed the man $145. The customer wanted to return the tires. It did not matter that Nordstrom's did not sell tires and never sold tires. They sell upscale clothing. The clerk accepted... more...

Business » Sales | By Lee Salz @ Monday, 7th April 2008 @ 1:01 AM

This is the time of year when salespeople begin to reflect on their performance. Was it a good year? Was it a great year? Some will say they earned the dollars they desired, so it was a great year. Others will hang their hat on an account that they won and say it was a good year. However, as Joe Torre, former manager of the New York Yankees recently learned, employers have a single data point for measuring success that dwarfs all other statistics. As the New York Yankees were eliminated... more...

Business » Sales | By Lee Salz @ Monday, 7th April 2008 @ 12:58 AM

Albert Einstein formulated the theory that says that space and time are relative concepts rather than absolute concepts. For example, consider a car speedometer reading at 65 miles per hour. How fast is the car going? This question seems like the beginning of the joke of who is buried in Grant's tomb and you are expecting a punch line. No joke here, I assure you. As a matter of fact, most would respond 65 miles per hour. This is the correct answer if and only if you are comparing the car to... more...

Business » Sales | By Bob Janet @ Sunday, 6th April 2008 @ 8:13 PM

As I have been traveling around the country speaking I continually hear, "Business is down. The market is changing. The customers are changing. It is not like it use to be. The economy is killing us. Being in business is much harder than it use to be." Well let's compare the past with today. As I remember in the 80's and 90's when the gas prices jumped up and up, although they never got as high as they are today it did not matter, our customers and us could not ev... more...

Business » Sales | By Craig Schulze @ Friday, 4th April 2008 @ 2:04 AM

Like any business you spend up to 10 times more money to get a customer than you do to get the customer back and make a second purchase, which is why with any business you want to have a very strong focus on retention of customers and working on your existing customers to keep buying from your business. As a business owner you would have invested a lot of money on front end marketing to build your database so now it is time to utilise your database to increase your sales and explode your... more...

Business » Sales | By Bob Janet @ Friday, 4th April 2008 @ 1:57 AM

We all know the customer is the most important person in our business, but sometimes we forget that the second most important person in the business is any employee that comes in contact with our customers in anyway. Plus the employee that contacts the customer face-to-face, so to speak, is the person who represents the business in the customers mind. If that representation is not a great experience for the customer, the business suffers. Yes the contact with every customer every time m... more...

Business » Sales | By Craig Schulze @ Thursday, 3rd April 2008 @ 2:01 AM

Traffic generation is the key to an online business success. No Traffic means No Business. You could have the best product, best sales letter in the world but if no one knows about it sales are going to be very low. Bottom line is getting traffic is crucial. Traffic generation are the marketing techniques you apply to generating leads for your business and building a massive database which overtime will convert into customers. There are off line and online marketing methods. For t... more...

Business » Sales | By Eric Corl @ Wednesday, 2nd April 2008 @ 11:54 PM

A growing number of people are generating ideas not to pursue them, but sell them to those who will. This trend has led to a number of companies and services who promise the ability to sell new ideas. Before exploring the different companies who make this promise, it is important to look beyond "selling ideas" and understand what that truly means. In order to sell an idea, what you really need is a patent. The reason for this is simple: without a patent, you have no leverage. If y... more...

Business » Sales | By Bob Janet @ Wednesday, 2nd April 2008 @ 8:48 PM

When you can get the prospect to think that they cannot live without purchasing your product or get them to think that they will be much better off purchasing the product / service from you instead of your competition you will close the sale. Even if you are selling a product that is a necessity of life, you can use the technique of 'A luxury once had becomes a necessity' simply by making your service the luxury the customer cannot live without. The Two ways I have always... more...

Business » Sales | By Bob Janet @ Wednesday, 2nd April 2008 @ 8:11 PM

Years ago I was embarrassed in front of a customer because I did not remember his wife's name. I should have remembered her name because they together had purchased electronics, furniture, appliances and tires from me for over 12 years. I vowed this would never happen again. Since I have a terrible memory I started writing everything down about every customer on index cards. Everything: name, address, telephone number, fax number, spouses name, every birth date of every member of ... more...

Business » Sales | By Bob Janet @ Tuesday, 1st April 2008 @ 10:56 PM

As I have been traveling around the country speaking I continually hear, "Business is down. The market is changing. The customers are changing. It is not like it use to be. The economy is killing us. Being in business is much harder than it use to be." Well let's compare the past with today. As I remember in the 80's and 90's when the gas prices jumped up and up, although they never got as high as they are today it did not matter, our customers and us could not ev... more...

Business » Sales | By Paul Johnson @ Tuesday, 1st April 2008 @ 6:39 AM

It happened again, but I'm not surprised. As the insurance salesman was wrapping up our meeting, he shook my hand and said, "Thanks for your time." I thought to myself, "What a crime." He was being polite, and I welcome that. He genuinely appreciated the time I devoted to our interaction. His thank-you was acknowledging the value of the time I had "spent" with him because we all know "time is money." Unfortunately he -- like many of us -- failed to no... more...