Every sales rep appreciates winning a big order from a key customer; but it’s rarely appropriate for him or her to say so to the customer.  Saying ‘Thank you for your business’ is bush league, and can significantly weaken your position.

Top performing sales executives recognize that customers buy their solutions because to do so makes good business sense for the customer’s organization.

“Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

                                              – Confucious

This truism is a powerful leadership and motivational tool that is underleveraged by most sales leaders.

We’ve all heard the buzzwords, “Creating Work/Life Balance,” but we usually think of the concept in terms of our own situation, not others around us or others who’s hard work we depend upon for our own success.

Listen to this training call with Scott and Noelle Kim with her team of Advisors at World Financial Group (Aegon) to discover the secrets of selling like a pro.  Developing long-term successful client relationships is much the same whether selling individual services to consumers or selling multi-million dollar capital equipment to industrial process facilities.

Right Click here and Save Target to download the MP3 file, or Click “Continue Reading” Below for streaming audio.

I read a great post today that I wanted to share with all my sales leadership readers.

The essence of the post is this: Leaders who keep their employees in the dark about their corporate vision and strategy are missing the greatest opportunity available to them for creating a truly great team.

Read the post at http://vnutravel.typepad.com/trainingday/2008/05/do-they-really.html?cid=113797518#comment-113797518

Last week I introduced the very important concept of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Sales Coaching in my post entitled Best Practices in B2B Sales Leadership | Peer To Peer Sales Coaching. I promised some examples.  First, though, let me reiterate the …

Hi Again,

I hope that you’ve all had a joyful and productive week.

It’s been some time since I’ve had a chance to put some of my sales leadership ideas to paper, so I apologize to my readers who look forward to these insights.

As an accomplished sales leader and coach, I am always looking for ways to leverage my limited time and the resources available, so I thought I’d share one of the most effective sales leadership techniques available to help you do the same.

Peer-to-Peer Sales Coaching

I have finally found the perfect system for automating my strategy for building customer rapport, and I must say that it is everything I had dreamed of.

For those of you who want to differentiate yourselves from your ‘peers’ and competitors by vastly expanding your network of contacts and generating a full pipeline of leads that know you and like you, this system is quite impressive.  I have put together a great description of how the system works at www.SalesRaceHorsesCards.com.

Once your candidate has passed the initial screen for ‘likeability’ and fundamental sales skills, it’s time to get really tough. The recruiting phase is when you need to scrutinize your candidates with vigor. This article addresses phase 2, the “Telephone Interview”, of the four phases of hiring peak performing sales reps:

Preliminary Phone Screen
Telephone Interview
Personality Profiling
Face-to-Face Group Interviews with Your Peer/Superior Advisor Group

Primary Objectives of theTelephone Interview

There’s a lot of talk about “closing” in sales, and yesterday I read an article that compelled me to write this post. The article, simply entitled Closing Techniques, really put the “slam” on the concept of “closing”.

The article I read stated that “closing techniques are an outmoded form of psychological manipulation…”

Several people have asked me recently, “How do I prevent a competitor from undercutting me, or otherwise influencing my customer to go with the competition?”

The scenario typically goes something like this:
“I just had a great visit with a prospect, and he really seems excited about the project we discussed.  I think he’s going to go with it, but what if  a competitor convinces him that their solution is better?”
My question to them is, “Which of the following 6 key strategies have you implemented to competitor proof yourself?”