Matthew G. Sikich II is The Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to "Sales Training". You can find complete information on Matthew G. Sikich II and his products by visiting The 5 Buying Habits.
What is the number one success-killer that good salespeople make? They set out to do the exact same thing as every other salesperson, except perhaps a little bit better. The problem is that if you set out to be exactly like everybody else, but a little bit better, then you'll experience the ... Views: 1479
How high is your competitive awareness? On a scale of one to 10…with 10 being strongest…pick a number you feel most represents your current level of competitive awareness. Most experienced sales professionals identify their competitive awareness level as around a seven to nine…what’s your ... Views: 3754
Based on surveys and group panels, a trend has occurred where practice owners continue to sign on with insurance companies offering lousy reimbursements, based on the rationalization, “If I don’t do it somebody else will”. That’s putting a nail in the coffin of your budget every time you tie ... Views: 1020
How many times have you heard business gurus telling you to visualize success if you want to achieve it? I can't count the number of pieces of literature I've opened on subjects totally unrelated to psychology with a section in the book telling me to "program my subconscious" by "visualizing ... Views: 1557
For an organization to sustain continued growth and success, sales must occur at a continuous rate. If there is a sales culture within an organization, then it is more likely to find success over a long period of time. A company where every individual has the necessary skills to understand and ... Views: 1309
How can your organization sell more and sell smarter? By creating a powerful sales culture – an environment that inspires and engages everyone in the organization to become part of the virtual sales team and support the sales efforts.
What Is Sales Culture?
Sales culture is the concept that ... Views: 2205
Marketing and promotion is essential for the success of all companies, no matter how big or small. Among the various promotional strategies that help to promote products and services, free giveaways is very effective. These giveaways are used as a part of sales promotion to boost the sales of ... Views: 2042
In our previous article, we looked at the extremely interesting study by Nielsen who measured Consumer Trust in Advertising Channels. Essentially, they looked at the various ways that a business delivers its message to prospects, and determined the degree to which that prospect trusted that ... Views: 741
If you are like most organizations, your marketing budget has been squeezed and squeezed as customers become tighter with their spending and competitors become more and more fierce. This means that more and more, the return on marketing investment needs to be measured and maximized.
As ... Views: 828
Are you interested in more than doubling your sales?
Before I tell you how, I want you to think about the best class you've ever taken. Was it a class where the teacher or professor lectured at you, and you were expected to sit quietly and listen? Likely not. Your favorite class was probably ... Views: 1088
Pretend You Charge By The Hour Or, If You're Good, You Can Get Taken Advantage Of
Many sales people fail to understand just how valuable their time is and because of this, many lack even average time management skills.
Even when some sales people feel that there is a 90% chance that they ... Views: 1154
In email prospecting strategies, one of the first things I advise is that you send yourself a draft before hitting the final send. That way, you get a sense of what it's like for your prospects to receive your emails. You can quickly see where you need to make adjustments to grab your ... Views: 1009
As sellers, we know that one of the keys to opening doors with new prospects lies in positioning our solutions as something different from the competition. In fact, sales and marketing departments spend a significant amount of time trying to determine exactly what their company's unique selling ... Views: 931
Did you watch the Dancing with the Stars finale this season? Yes, I admit it; I watch that show. I love the waltzes that are so graceful with the beautiful dresses and flowing fabric.
Hines Ward, of Pittsburgh Steelers fame, won. The cool thing about Hines is that when he danced, it ... Views: 2388
Your degree of personal energy is completely up to you because YOU are in control of your choices! That’s hard to remember sometimes especially with the current level of stress most entrepreneurs experience. However, when you take the time to monitor and consciously improve your personal ... Views: 2096
Effective salespeople in the world of business to business sales all have specific factors in common. They not only have excellent sales techniques, they also thoroughly understand the business arena. But perhaps more importantly they have researched their customers business and his specific ... Views: 884
Through telemarketing services, B2B lead generation and appointment setting can become available to Canadian firms. And through these, they can hope to bring in more business and make more sales with their firm. As a direct marketing tool, telemarketing is known to be quite effective in brining ... Views: 785
It's a tough economy, no doubt about it. And though the pace of business is accelerating, some businesses are taking longer to make buying decisions. When the people talking with vendors and potential vendors are hesitant, they could be concerned about making a wrong move and losing their job ... Views: 1275
Confidence wanes and self-doubt sets-in when your negative little voices nag at you. Those little voices stem from parental lectures and social interactions which are now programmed into you psyche. These programs are what your inner parent draws from to tells your inner child how to react. ... Views: 2570
Few reputable firms in any industry accept anything less than a four-year degree from an accredited university. It is rare to find a business-to-business (B2B) sales position with a GPA below 3.1.
For some business-to-consumer (B2C) sales jobs, an accredited degree is not required.
Still, ... Views: 1110
Oh, the joy of humming along with those great songs, the hits, wonderfully re-mastered instrumental versions, especially the electronic tonal beats that play over and over through the filtered telephone interface as we wait for the service attendant to finally click on and tell us the ... Views: 1597
Had an interesting experience recently – let me lay out some background for you. First you need to know that we live in a rural area where all the properties are 10 acres. Every day Sugar, Ebony (sometimes Kyle) and I go for walks. There is really only one route we can take. On that route all ... Views: 1153
Sales Prospecting by Positioning Your Business Where Customers Seek You Out "What business are you in?" It sounds a bit strange at first but it has massive implications to your business. Many businesses and salespeople lose sight of the real reason they are in business, that is to solve problems ... Views: 1296
If you have an element of sales prospecting and new lead generation involved in your sales position or your business then you have so many options open to you. There is no excuse for not being able identify a constant stream of new sales prospects. There is also no excuse for approaching people ... Views: 1257
Have you ever thought of using YouTube as an effective sales prospecting tool? You might think that YouTube is for teenagers to share videos of dancing parrots and car crashes but you would be wrong. There are huge opportunities for professional sales people and business people to get exposure ... Views: 1454
Is there an alternative to cold calling in sales prospecting? There is and it's good old Google! Ah, Google! Possibly the greatest invention of the 20th Century. What did we ever do without it? I know what I did without it because I was selling before it existed. I can remember spending a whole ... Views: 2497
One of the greatest advances in sales prospecting techniques is the ability to use Google alerts to track prospects, customers and sales trigger events. If you set up a few of these alerts the amount of data gathered can begin to get overwhelming but don't fret there are easy ways to manage all ... Views: 2416
How is your sales prospecting success?
One of the applications of the Internet that really excites me more than most for sales prospecting, is the ability to get direct contact numbers for almost anyone you want contact with. Historically, appointment setting training and material has largely ... Views: 1271
Have you heard the saying "People buy people?"
If you have been in sales or business any length of time then you would have heard this a thousand times.
The trouble is no one has ever really been able to show you how you can go about selling yourself - until now, that is.
You might work ... Views: 5298
Sales Prospecting in the 21st Century means you have to be blogging to raise your industry profile. Here you will discover the essential first part - the right name choice.
Are you blogging? If you are not then you are missing out on one of the greatest tools for accelerating your sales ... Views: 1228
Sales prospecting using blogging is a fantastic way to generate new business. In this article, which is part of a series released here, you will discover some advanced ways for salespeople to use blogging for sales prospecting. This is rather an advanced way of thinking about blogs but is ... Views: 1267
Sales Prospecting with Twitter.com, is called a 'micro blog'. It is a blogging platform that allows posts to be a maximum of 140 characters. It has taken the online world by storm and is set to stay as a dominant online networking platform for years to come. But the main question is if you are a ... Views: 1617
A question I am often asked when delivering sales prospecting training is 'should I be using twitter for business to business sales prospecting?' Why Use Twitter: Twitter is a fantastic way to quickly and easily begin a dialogue with key targeted people and form relationships with them. You can ... Views: 1090
Why should you sell over the telephone?
• Telesales is cost effective compared to face to face sales
• Telephone selling is direct - typically no appointment is required or its a quick and easy way to make a sales meeting
• It's personal - your personality can shine through
• It's ... Views: 1158
The 80/20 principle is also know as the Pareto principle after the economist who developed it. It is an almost universal principle that can be applied to business and life. It generally shows us that 80% of your return comes from 20% of your effort. We use this principle right throughout our ... Views: 1049
There is so much being written at the moment about cold calling being outdated, outlived and down-right dead. I couldn't disagree more.
Yes, we all know there are more sophisticated marketing and sales methods around. We would all like our phones ringing off the hook with potential clients ... Views: 1073
Sales is not a numbers game and the way you control that is by clearly identifying who you would like to be working with and who is a good fit with your company. Define your ideal client or customer. Sales is only a numbers game game if you let it. It is your choice.
If you can't identify who ... Views: 1201
When sales people are prospecting we very often overlook the easy solutions. Where ethically acceptable to do so, the quickest way to get new business appointments meetings is to contact the competition of your existing clients.
Example 1:
My business was recently emailed by a search ... Views: 976
We are looking at the quickest ways to win new business by careful sales prospecting. The reality is there is no quicker way to develop a list of target clients than to revisit your past successes, the companies involved and target their competitors and their Industry.
An Example:
A ... Views: 955
Very often when I run telesales training courses, one of the biggest failures I see is an understanding of why people are calling. Before you ever embark on a campaign of appointment setting and/or telesales you need to understand why you are calling the other person.
Take a few minutes and ... Views: 1029
Voicemail is the scourge of many salespeople and yet the number 1 prospecting tool for some of the worlds most successful salespeople. Where does it sit in your sales prospecting armory?
I really am surprised that even the most experienced sale people have never, ever taken the time to work ... Views: 1545
One summer while I was on vacation from college I became a tin man: selling aluminum siding and roofing door to door in the Boston area. The business has a bad reputation but our siding and our roofs were the finest available. Our prices were high but fair. In spite of what consumers always want ... Views: 1568
As a thoracic (chest) surgeon, Aaron was used to working on hearts and lungs.
He’s a gifted surgeon, with a wonderful bedside manner, impeccable skills, and true caring for his patients’ lives and families. But the truth was, his case volume was down, and so too was his income. What to do? ... Views: 1089
When you send sales literature in the post your job is only just starting not ending. Make sure you know how to develop this to make the sale.
All too frequently sales people spend an inordinate amount of time posting out literature to prospective clients and customers. Generally it is ... Views: 1052
Sales Objection Handling - "Send Something in the post"
This has to be one of the most horrible phrases ever heard by many salespeople. In fact it generally goes something like this:
"Send something in the post and we will call you if we are interested"
When many sales people hear this, ... Views: 1870
Most people who come to my sales trainings want to know about objection handling and closing. Unless they have had training before or are a little bit more experienced, they think that sales relies on what you say at the end of the process.
This is not true because sales is a process that ... Views: 1026
This has to be one of the most asked questions in my sales training.
"How do we deal with the sales objection -- we are happy with our current supplier?"
Firstly, let me talk you through a few key elements of what I notice in people when they have asked me that question:
Generally ... Views: 3309
Today's modern technology lets you do so much in terms of saving time and adding functionality to the sales process. One of the greatest advances is in the area of web meetings or 'webinars' as they more commonly know.
A webinar is an online meeting held over the internet using a service such ... Views: 1167
When working with sales people in my sales cinsulting business I am often amazed at the amount of time they spend focusing on the people that are actively interested in their product or service right now.
Now don't get me wrong, these are by far the hottest prospects and deserve attention. ... Views: 926
Q. “Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. Jack Bauer: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll find out.”
If you want to be a trusted partner, helping your customers solve their most difficult problems and create lasting success, you have to solve the right problems.
Many ... Views: 1177