Monthly Archives: September 2010
Waving the Sales Call Flag
Many sales reps start a conversation with a potential customer by signaling “This is a sales call!” Few things are likely to turn off a listener more. Waving this “sales call flag” is basically letting your listener know that this conversation will be just like most other sales interactions they have had. It is as if the sales person is saying, “I want to talk you into buying something you may not want and may later regret but by gosh, I am going to do that because what I am doing is important.” Continue reading
Imagination and Sales
I’ve read about all sorts of characteristics that sales people need to possess in order to be successful. One that doesn’t often make the list is imagination. Yet one could argue that this characteristic is essential—you need to be able to imagine how your customer can use your product. In addition, the good sales reps know how to imagine what it is in the mind of their customers (mindset). Imagination also applies to crafting your sales language. You need to be able to imagine how the words you choose will be interpreted by your prospects and customers. Continue reading
The People Factor
In his blog “Mark Twain was Right—Numbers Lie”, Paul McCord talks about how all the numbers and statistics don’t necessarily mean anything when applied to humans. He described how the NFL tries to quantify the potential draftees by assigning numbers to them that reflect their skills, physical abilities, intelligence—all used to provide guidance as to their predicted success as future football players. And of course, the numbers lie. Those that you expect to be great—based on all of those qualities that were defined and captured often are not. And those unknowns—well, they surprise you. Continue reading
Knowing What is Needed is Not Enough
As I was flying home from Philadelphia last week, I got into an interesting conversation while waiting for my plane. Joe, a business manager, was talking about a quote he read recently that 70% of business managers are incompetent! And the experts who derived this statistic were industrial psychologists— the group of psychologists that specializes in business. We got into a great discussion about managers we knew who were competent and those who weren’t.
It made me think of how knowing what to do (and to make things better) and applying that knowledge is not enough. Continue reading
