Shifting the Sales Compensation Paradigm

How do you protect cash positions while balancing the seemingly contradictory problem of keeping cost of sales under control and your sales force intact while revenues decrease. Compensating sales efforts appropriately is one solution for protecting margins, profit and cash. Solving this issue may take creating a new paradigm for sales representative compensation.

Nine Hidden Dangers Of Wasting Your Time, Effort and Sanity On Nickel-and-Dime Cheapstake Buyers

There are some buyers out there who understand value but there are many of them who understand only price. And we have to be careful not to waste our time and sanity on people who buy professional services based on price.

Additional Sales for No Extra Cost

Did you know that it costs about 5 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one? Why then is customer service generally so bad?

Fishy Salespeople? How to Finally Stop Handing Out FREE Fish to Your Sales People

Do you remember the good ole days when sales managers used to just sit back and wait for their salespeople to come into their offices and ask for help? Maybe they needed the old veteran to come in and nail down the close. Well, we all know you just can't do that any more. Sure, that would put a few more sales in the win column (in the short term). But in the long term what are you creating? Nothing but needy, dependent salespeople without an ounce of personal selling confidence. Show your sales people HOW to prospect, HOW to set appointments and HOW to close sales makes your job easier and everybody's paycheck fatter.

Powerful Routines; Identifying Sales Scenarios and Developing Best Practices for Improvement

There are only a finite amount of scenarios in any selling process and if you identify them, train to them and measure your results you are on your way to excellence. This article will help you do just that.

Avoiding the Customers You Don't Want: The 10 Warning Signs of Trouble

All customers are not created equal. Some will return rich rewards. Others simply drain our time, money and talent. Discover the 10 signals of customers it's best to avoid. From the author of Writing Copy for Dummies.

The Vital Few

Back in the 19th century, an Italian economist quantified the general relationship between a minority of producers and a majority of output. Sound familiar? The simplified version of Vilfredo Pareto'...

Sales Appointment Planning

This is arguably the hardest thing you will ask a salesperson to do, the part of the job they really hate

Sales Effectiveness: How to Raise Performance of Your Sales Staff

How much revenue did your outstanding sales professional deliver to your organisation last year and what would it be worth to clone that performance across your entire salesforce?

The Highest Form of Persuasion Revealed

Influence is a key element in mastering the techniques of Magnetic Persuasion. Influence is the highest form of persuasion. With influence, people are spurred on to action because of your character, not your maneuvers. Persuasion is what you do or say, but influence is who you are.

The Art Of Delegation

In any organisation there is a degree of formal authority which goes with the job. A subordinate expects their boss to have a wider knowledge, wield a greater influence, and carry more weight than they do themselves. At the same time, there is an added dimension to authority which is invested in the person themselves which we call leadership.

Sales Managers – What Are Their Expectations Of You, The Sales Rep?

This article shows how you can get the most out of your sales job - autonomy and independance - without having a sales manager looking over your shoulder.

8 Business Plan Mistakes to Avoid

It is hard to get funding from a business plan, even a very good business plan. You can give yourself a much better chance of raising capital if you avoid these common business plan mistakes.