What Is Your ASK?
One of the biggest issues that prevent people from achieving their goals is a lack of clarity on their ASK. I encounter this problem all the time, and its impact is profound. For example, a sales exec calls me and asks how to handle a call with a new exec on the buyer side. The first thing I ask is, “What is your ASK”? The answer usually is: “I educate the buyer on what we can do for them.” But...
How to Grow Your Business in Less Time in 2019
Sales and leadership have taught me a great deal about relationships, and so have those of you who have been on this journey with me over the years. We have worked together and grown together, and you have allowed me to develop as a consultant, speaker, and writer. That is why I am so excited to share the Velocity Mindset with you because everything I have learned from you has helped me to develop this breakthrough. ...
Turning Defeat into Success
In June 2014 I had the opportunity to provide some concluding remarks and summarize my year as president of the National Speakers Association at their annual convention. The year had been the journey of a lifetime, and it was also my best year in business. I felt like I was on the top of the world until it came crashing down a few months later. Over the next two-and-a-half years, I had nine surgeries, primarily on my back. The final surgery,...
Getting Past the Dreaded Answer: NO
What happens when a customer says no to you? What do you do? Ninety percent of salespeople accept no as an outright rejection and just move on. But that is the worst thing you can do! In doing so, you disqualify yourself from numerous sales. Why? Because a good sales executive will encounter between three and five no’s before a customer actually says yes. This means that the first no is no time to give up. It helps to understand...
How Confirmation Bias Undermines Sales
As our society has become more polarized politically, many people have started talking about the term confirmation bias to explain what is going on. The term basically means the tendency to look for information that confirms our existing beliefs and to ignore the information that challenges our beliefs. Our confirmation bias leaves us stuck in our own viewpoint and unlikely to understand the viewpoint of another. It may not sound like it, but this has everything to do with sales....
Using Numbers to Build Sales
Michael Lewis’s 2003 bestselling book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, which inspired the 2011 film Moneyball, examined the Oakland A’s baseball team and their general manager’s approach to assembling a team that could compete, despite its comparatively low payroll. A’s manager Billy Beane introduced baseball to sabermetrics—“the application of statistical analysis to baseball records, especially in order to evaluate and compare the performance of individual players.” The result was that the A’s were competitive and made the...
How to Save Time and Get Your Prospects from No to Yes
None of us in sales escapes the occasional “no.” The power lies in understanding what each customer or prospect means when they say it. Once you know that, you’ll know what to do about it. Here are five typical reasons a customer/prospect says no and the appropriate solution for each: Reason 1—Bad Timing No matter how powerful your value proposition is, the customer is not going to say yes if the timing isn’t right. Solution: Make sure you did everything to...
How to Use Voicemail to Get Your Prospects’ Attention
Do you get frustrated when your prospects or customers do not return your calls? I know I do. I may be a Sales and Leadership expert, but when I don’t get a return call, I still review what I said to figure out what I need to change in order to get better results. Remember: Your customers and prospects are just like you. They don’t have enough time to get everything done that they have to do. They are in meetings, running on deadlines, solving problems, and...
Dear Manager: A Letter from a Sales Hunter
Does your organization know how to support a sales hunter? As a Sales and Leadership expert, I have noticed that this relationship can be a complicated one—on both sides. Below is a letter written by a hunter to management that addresses typical issues hunters face. The letter is meant to raise issues hunters should address to gain the support they need. But the letter is also meant to highlight management issues, alerting them to what they need to do to support the hunter. Dear Manager, You...