29Jun/100

The Most Powerful “Word” in Sales Negotiation

The most powerful word you can learn in any sales negotiation training program is this: "___." That’s right! Say nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

Silence!

When a prospect says, for example, "You’re price is WAAY too high."

Respond with, "___."

You might feel awkward. But your prospect will have to say something.

And that means they’ll tell you why they think it's too high. That's what you're after, isn't it? There must be a reason for saying your price is too high. And, if you're quiet, they'll have to tell you what their reason is.

Then, you can address their objection.

Okay, if you're not comfortable with silence, you might also simply respond with, "Why do you say that?"

You'll get the same result: They'll tell you why they think it's too high.

This is just one of the negotiation strategies and tactics contained in the Sales Negotiation Training book called, "How to Sell at Margins Higher Than Your Competitors."

 

@JebBrooks

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28Jun/100

Did You Remember to Order Your Takeout Also: Upselling and Alignment

If you decide to upsell or market another product to people who have already bought something from you, make sure your offering is in alignment with what they actually need.

The other day, I opened a fortune cookie and discovered a sales blunder. "Did you remember to order your take out also" failed because I was already sitting on my couch, having just finished my takeout. I didn't need anymore. Too often, marketing campaigns to current customers fail because they contain offers that miss the mark.

"Upselling" is really about providing customer service and account management in a profitable way. It's about providing ongoing value and securing a client. My good friend Jim Cathcart brilliantly calls it "upserving."

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23Jun/100

What’s IMPACT Selling?

It turns out that there are a few of you out there who watch our blog, but aren't sure what we do here at The Brooks Group! Please let me fix that!

We help organizations improve their sales performance. We do that by providing sales and management assessment, training, and retention tools. The customer-focused sales process we tailor to our clients is called IMPACT Selling®. And we've been teaching, coaching, and reinforcing it for for a long time. It's won awards and helped salespeople open and "tie up" an untold number of sales on behalf of thousands of our client organizations. We're proud of the work we do helping salespeople, their managers, and their companies grow.

So, even though it's a shameless plug, I thought I'd post a link to more information about IMPACT because it might be interesting to some of you.

Also, keep your eye on us here at "Sales Evolution" to see sales and sales management content, questions, and ideas. (by the way, are you subscribed to the RSS feed)?

@JebBrooks

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18Jun/103

The Role of Technology in Sales

The other day, I had a great telephone conversation with Anthony Iannarino from The Sales Blog. As an aside, it's a lot of fun to connect with someone offline after getting to know them online - especially given what we talked about. In the interest of full disclosure, he and I have no connection other than that we both manage sales blogs. I will say that, because his content is so interesting, I'm hoping he'll bring a guest post to us here at Sales Evolution.

Anyway, we ended up taking about the role of technology in sales. It was a great conversation and we agreed that technology should support -- not replace -- the sales effort. That's something I've said before. And he has too.

But the telephone call sparked a tweet.

We sent out, "Returning to fundamentals is always more important to sales success than implementing technology. Always."

Filed under: Sales Technology Continue reading
14Jun/104

Types of Sales Questions

I have been thinking a lot about sales questions lately. Here at The Brooks Group, we teach salespeople how to use nine, different types of sales questions.

Here they are:

  1. Problem-Resolution Questions.
  2. Agitation Questions.
  3. Solution- and Feeling-Based Questions.
  4. Needs-Based Questions.
  5. Feature-Benefit Questions.
  6. Objection-Testing Questions.
  7. Yes/No Questions.
  8. Level-1, -2, and -3 Questions.
  9. Silver Bullet Questions.

Of course, virtually anyone can learn a string of questions. That's the science of sales. The art? How to deploy them in a way that allows two things to occur simultaneously:

Filed under: Asking the right questions Continue reading
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