Good to know…All those knowns There’re three varieties of knowns. First there are the known knowns. Then come the known unknowns. Finally there are those sometimes very dangerous unknown unknowns. When we walk into a sales call with less preparation than necessary, the percentage of that third “known” goes up in direct proportion to our […]
Experience can be….the problem Those of us who’ve been around for a while tend to have a problem. It’s not that we know everything, but rather that we’re sometimes unreasonably certain about the correctness of what we believe we know. It’s not that what we’re certain of is incorrect. But the nature of our brain’s […]
Some numbers…For all of us In financial planning there’s something called the rule of 72. It refers to the approximate number of years required for an amount of money to double at any given interest rate. For a six percent return divide 6 into 72 and you get 12, (the number of years required to […]
Hold ‘em, fold ‘em…And the difference So you delivered a great presentation that however didn’t end all that well. Your approach was on target. The presentation of it well tailored and delivered just short of masterfully. But still it fell short. Your honest review of it afterwards didn’t unearth a single change in strategy or […]
Objections and overcoming Roadblocks to success There are those self proclaimed sales ‘experts’ who tell us that objections are just the buyer saying, “Tell me more”. Then there are those who say objections should be sidestepped and pretty much ignored. Truth is both are partly correct – but mostly wrong! Let’s start with that first […]
A word for…and against spontaneity Spontaneity is an essential skill that we’d be hard pressed to be without. In its absence we’d be like the DMV clerk who can’t assist an applicant because a set procedure that won’t allow them to deviate from a “plain vanilla” request. On the flip side there’s the potential value […]
He who speaks…first probably loses If we hope to succeed in the end goal of our sales presentation, we obviously have to understand the importance of delivering a solid close at its’ conclusion. And we know that a good sales close means posing a question that can’t be easily answered with a simple “no”, or […]
You have…my attention As the saying goes, if it was easy anybody could do it. That certainly applies to our profession since it requires such a wide array of skills to succeed. And while being only just “dangerous” at a few of those can still allow for success, there’re a few where nothing less than […]
ELMEC revisited…a sales refresher In sports it’s called muscle memory. You know that amazing ability to return to a skill we were once proficient at? Take golf. Stop chasing that little ball for ten years and you can still pick up a club and that familiar hand grip and swing feels almost automatic. The problem […]
Making plans that …match the goals After establishing goals comes making plans to achieve them. Implementation follows and then evaluating how well it all worked comes last in the GPIE acronym. Assuming we’ve created goals that are indeed believable, achievable and measurable, that planning step is often the weak link in those four steps. All […]