Excuse Making

Problem: Bert, VP Sales for ABC Company, was explaining to the CEO why they were 50% short of goal. “Our prospects tell my salespeople our pricing is 25% higher than our closest competitor, business is terrific so why risk change, and they (the prospects) don’t understand Web-based e-commerce yet.”  Bert continued, “I can relate. We [&hellip

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Silence is Sometimes Golden

Problem: You spent the better part of a day putting together a proposal and preparing for a big presentation. You’re ready for your scheduled meeting and finally get your chance. Everything goes great and you are at that point waiting for the buyer to say, “Yes.” The prospect warmly smiles and says, “That was one [&hellip

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The Fallacy of a “Full” Pipeline

Problem:  Larry was a salesperson with 3 years experience selling printing services.  He was constantly busy doing proposals and following up on the many prospects who regularly called him for quotes.  Clearly, he had developed great relationships with his prospects and customers.   While his sales manager was happy with his efforts (the company measured salespeople [&hellip

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“We Like You the Best, But…”

Problem:  Recently a relationship manager with a large regional commercial bank called for some coaching.  He had been having a dialogue with his prospect for several months and had offered several proposals for the business, all of which had been rejected as “just not compelling enough” for them to change banks.  He was very proud [&hellip

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“Makes Sense to Me”

Problem:   Krista had been making a lot of sales calls, seeing many people, and enthusiastically presenting proposals during the past few months.  She was pleased that her pipeline was full because she had so many proposals on the street.  Her prospects, however, seemed to take a lot of time to make buying decisions, and sales [&hellip

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Your Best Investment

Problem:  Although the attendees were a diverse group (some salespeople, a few financial advisors, several professional service providers, etc.), they agreed that they shared several things in common: they all wanted to make more money their ability to make more money was directly proportionate to their ability to attract new clients to their companies or [&hellip

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Wow! I’m Good!

Problem: Despite years of experience, attendance at numerous training programs, and coaching from sales managers, many salespeople still fail to elevate their performance above mediocre levels. Analysis: Numerous factors can influence performance, but the most overlooked is attitude – how we feel about ourselves. Unfortunately, our attitude about ourselves, our self-image (self-confidence or self-perception) is [&hellip

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Wimping Out

Problem:  As trainers, we see this scenario played out time and time again.  Salespeople seem to have lost the ability to close! Diagnosis:  Selling, from a technical/skill perspective, has gone through a major transition.  Years ago, salespeople were taught what we might call the CHAOS System of Selling, the Close Hard And Often System.  Pound [&hellip

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