You likely had an approach to preparing for presentations that worked…until about late February. Creating a new process or adjusting your current process is likely necessary in order to maximize results with your customers. What changed (as a result of everyone working from home)? What worked until late February Until recently if you needed to […]
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Keeping your sales toughness
Selling already requires preparation, creativity, patience and persistence. Considering business is harder to find and sales cycles have become longer, your willingness to “keep at it” while being sensitive to customers’ challenges is being tested. How might you maintain or enhance your sales toughness? Re-evaluate your goals Figuring this out starts with your ability to […]
What I learned in my first job might help you
Looking back on my first job as a salesperson for NCR Business Forms starting in 1982, I realized I learned a lot from the first few months and years. While some of what I learned was completely dumb luck and some deliberate, I hope it helps you as you look to advance your career and/or […]
Not Selling in the coronavirus environment: Maybe the best questions you can ask your customers
I am still hearing frequently it is considered “tone deaf” to try to drive a sales opportunity forward with many customers. Consistent with this theme, Avi Smith-Rappaport, President of We Care Computers in West Hartford, CT has been asking business colleagues and friends “Do you have everything you need?” Avi recently told me this question […]
Selling in the coronavirus environment: What your executives can do for you
Why is it usually hard to schedule your executives to connect with your customers? In addition to having a lot of demands on their time, they were travelling! Since that is not happening at least in the near term, you have a unique opportunity to connect your executives with your customers. Go on “offense” – […]
Selling in the coronavirus environment: How to keep deals on track
Since access to your customers is more difficult, getting feedback on how deals are progressing is more challenging as a result. My March 31, 2020 post was focused on how to have documents “speak for themselves” because having the number and depth of conversations we used to have is more difficult. Here is great example […]
Selling in the coronavirus environment: Managing your Sales Manager
Depending on how your company is addressing challenges with sales reps’ performance due to the restrictions, communication with your manager may be more critical than ever. Thinking ahead and proactively communicating with them (vs. waiting for them to track you down) are the keys to this going well. Here are some important considerations and some […]
Selling in the coronavirus environment: Presentations, proposals need to speak for themselves!
How is the use of video conferencing impacting how your presentations are going? Are the same slide presentations and proposal documents working well? When we were all presenting in person, we could leave certain aspects of the proposals for conversation because it was easy to read the customer’s interest level. Spending some time reviewing your […]
Managing customer relationships given Coronavirus related restrictions
Before we all had to start working from home we had a lot of options for managing existing customer relationships. Maybe you had easy access to key customer contacts and could have informal discussions. Walking into someone’s office was a possibility. Recurring meetings you may have had could be informal because you were in the […]
Want a higher close ratio?
It is relatively early in the fiscal year for most companies. If your year did not start as you hoped and/or was derailed by the coronavirus situation, now is a good time to look at how you can get more out of your effort. While working harder may result in more deals closing, adjustments in […]