For many years as a sales manager, I would only hire the stereotypical sales representative. You know the type-on a human relations continuum or scale of zero to ten, with the ten representing a candidate who is totally gregarious and outgoing and the zero, someone who is introverted with few people skills, I'd always recruit the ten. As an advisor to businesses and professional service firms on how to build an effective sales team, I would also council my clients to hire "tens." Big mistake!...

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So you have a boss who dumps all over you the moment things go wrong, but never seems to notice when things go right. Ouch. Jamie is a hard-working, cheery, full-of-ideas kind of manager. She leads two high-functioning teams who support each other very well. So why does Jamie come to work with a stomachache every day? Why does her staff often feel paralyzed? It's because Jamie's boss, VP of Client Services, finds fault every day with Jamie and her team members. He seems to go out of his way to criticize....

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Here's the Scenario... You're at a trade show. Out of town. It's probably an unfamiliar city. Maybe an exotic locale. Lots of strangers. There's a client or two. A couple of buddies. Lots of opportunities to do business. Lots of opportunities to get yourself in a bind. Here's how to stay out of trouble, save your dignity and keep your job. Trade shows are hard work - both physically and emotionally. It's tiring to travel. Hard to be away from home. Boring to be pleasant and smile for hours. And, a blow to the ego when people ignore you, don't respond to your comments, look the other way when passing your booth, or just say "...

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You're a small company with a good product. You are confident that the product can sell, but you don't have the financial resources to hire a team of fifty salespeople to market and sell the product for you. You also don't have the staff resources to support those that purchase the product. How do you make your good idea and good product create success for you? ProsIf you hire a distributor already in your market, they know how to sell in that market because they will have presumably already been doing so....

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Is lack of sales results, more sales training costs, months ofunearned salary and damage to your company's image orreputation your company's method of NOT finding goodsalespeople? For most companies it is! The "trial and error" method of hiring salespeople is verycostly to a business. Without a viable way to hire qualitysales people everyone in the same organization is negativelyaffected. Without revenues there often are not adequate humanand financial resources to best service customers or grow thebusiness....

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Exactly what is CRM The idea itself is nothing new; its roots have been around since trading began. The principle of looking after your customers so that they come back regularly is, after all, merely the basis of good trading. In an increasingly competitive commercial world however, strong customer relationships take on an increasing importance. With the cost of selling to a new customer being five times the cost of selling to an existing one you can't afford to lose established business. Yes, you still want new markets, and yes, for various reasons customers will still disappear....

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The way we do business has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. More products and services are now being offered outside traditional premises. You no longer have to go to a bank to complete your transactions or home loan applications. Insurance brokers visit your home or office; retailers deliver products directly to your home. This change in distribution methodology has meant many of us now run a car-office. While researching this change in business strategy, we interviewed several successful managers, executives and sales people who operate their business from their car-office....

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Myth 1: People Always Buy Where They Get the Cheapest Price If this was true, only businesses that charge cheap prices would exist. Some people buy where they get the cheapest price. But most people are more interested in getting value for their money than in getting a bargain. Tip: Look for some low-cost ways you can enhance the perceived value of your product or service. Then test raising your price. Don't be surprised if both your sales and your profit margin go up. Myth 2: vOffering Your Customers Many Options Will Boost Your Sales Presenting your customers with options usually reduces your sales....

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In the 30-plus years I spent working in advertising and marketing, one of the most frequently asked questions I got from retailers was "how can I make sure I have successful sale?" While there are no hard and fast answers to this question, there are some guidelines you can follow to maximize your chances of that sale being successful. First, if your store is in an area with fairly frequent rains (or snows), do not, and I mean, do not have a one-day sale. You put in a lot of work preparing for and advertising a sale and what could be more depressing than sitting in your store for 12 hours on your sale day watching the rain come down and no customers come in?...

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I don't know about your business but in my experience proactive, positive, consistent new business winners are the holy grail of any sales organisation. All of my clients have their own unique ways of motivating, managing and running their sales teams yet they all have problems from time keeping those teams on target and "up for it!" In this article I am going to cover the core fundamentals of How to Develop a Proactive, New-Business Sales Team. These are the same strategies and techniques that I have used to help many of my clients explode their personal and their team's sales....

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There are really only two types of competitor: 1. Obvious 2. Hidden The obvious competitors are, well, obvious! You'll probably know who they are. You might even meet up for a drink with them and bump into them at networking events. You'll have analysed their offerings and differentiated yours. You know these guys. In fact if you're a Lean MarketerTM you probably know them better than they know themselves! But what of these "hidden" competitors? Well, you know these too. They're: Mr Do Nothing and Mrs Do It Myself....

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This is a quandary not unlike the chicken or the egg question, "Which comes first?". Do you focus on creating a superior product and continue to develop superior products or do you shift focus from the product to the sale prior to fully developing the line, or schedule of services? In the study of business start-ups there are a tremendous number of entrepreneurs who created, or found marvelous products and yet were unable to crack the marketplace. How many programs have you seen on TV that show warehouses of goods, that just sit and are never introduced to the consumer?...

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