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Question: When should you tell your spouse that you love them?
Answer: Before someone else does!
The same basic principle holds true for your clients and customers. Your best clients really are your competitor’s best prospects. That’s why every sales professional should include specific customer success behaviors in their account plan to maximize the client onboarding experience, build and protect the relationship, expand the account, and generate repeat business and referrals. This is not a “customer service” issue. It’s a customer success issue, and we need to think of it that way!

The Sandler Research Center queried a subset of business leaders and sales professionals to provide a snapshot of the workplace right now.  Who is working in the office, who is visiting customers, where are business conversations happening and how do these vary by industry.

While people can change and grow in skills, they tend to be uncomfortable with both. So, what do you do about helping people to work through the discomfort that comes with change for personal growth and skills development? Here are four steps that can help you, whether you are introducing a new training program, application software, company policy or compensation plan.

After 18 years of helping Chief Execs, Sales Managers and Sales People capitalize on their strengths and overcome weaknesses, here are my top five ways to convert your good salespeople to great salespeople!

We talked about Negative Reverse Selling and using strip-lining techniques to get neutral prospects talking about issues with their business and any related pain caused by those issues. Negative Reverse Selling is saying and doing the opposite of what the prospect expects salespeople to do. Strip-lining is giving the prospect more line to swim with, and allows the prospect to keep talking, making it one of the more effective tools in the NRS toolbox. It’s much easier to gather information once you set the prospect into motion, and Negative Reverse Selling is a great way to get the pendulum moving.

Let’s take a look at a scenario where strip-lining can be very effective in getting a negative prospect moving in the right direction. The prospect says to the salesperson...

Our most recent blogs have been covering the Dummy Curve. Using the Dummy Curve you would be acting like you are a little "less okay" than the prospect (inside you feel great though). It's disarming and it helps with bonding and rapport to the point where your prospect feels empowered talking to you. When using Dummy Curve techniques the prospect lets down their defense wall. Then it gets very easy to find out if they have pain - a deep seated emotional need that compels them to buy your product or service.

The Dummy Curve works great, however, it’s not just the words you say, but your.,.. 

In the past few blogs, we’ve been talking about a very effective sales technique called Reversing. When using reversing the salesperson answer a prospect's question with a question. When done properly it is very disarming and will result in the salesperson gathering more information. When done properly the prospect will feel like the salesperson really cares. The ultimate goal of reversing is to have the prospect quickly feel at ease and reveal their personal pain or reveal they the prospect doesn't have any pain. Remember, no pain equals...

In our most recent blog, we introduced strip-lining as one of our favorite sales techniques under the Negative Reverse Selling umbrella. Remember, Negative Reverse Selling is doing the exact opposite of what your prospect is expecting from a sales person, thus throwing them off guard. Continuing down that negative selling path, let’s take another look at setting a neutral prospect into motion by strip-lining or throwing him or her some more line to swim about before you reel them in.

In the past few blogs we’ve been talking about the highly effective Dummy Curve technique, where playing the dummy pays off big time when it comes to sales. By playing the dummy and disarming your prospect’s concern, you can get them to reveal pain and establish trust with you. In this blog, we will finish up this series on the Dummy Curve with some math.

At a well-known stock brokerage firm in Boston, 44 Rookie Brokers make over 100 calls each per day as tracked by their telephone system. During my first “Prospecting Clinic” for this group, I polled the group of 44 Rookie Brokers.

I asked all to stand who had gotten one or more referrals over the past 30 days. Just about all stood up. Then I continued, “Please remain standing if you’ve gotten five or more referrals over the last 30 days” – most sat down at that question. By the time I asked who had gotten twenty or more, only one person remained standing; only one person was getting one referral or more per weekday!

So, why is it that salespeople are lousy at ...