Articles under ‘Business Development’

The other day a business man was complaining to me that certain buyers were not recognising the difference in value between his product and those of his competition. He was providing a much superior level of service but it was failing to register on the buyer’s radar. All they seemed to be interested in was [...]

I was running a sales training course the other day and I was covering how to make cross selling to existing customers easier by increasing the range of products and services on offer. One attendee said:
‘I am an aroma therapist – does that mean to give different types of therapy such as reflexology?’

You can avoid some serious diseases by receiving an inoculation. The smallpox inoculation works by infecting an individual with a mild case of smallpox and the body builds up natural defenses. In a similar way, you can inoculate prospects against serious price objections by using the concept of inoculation. This will help enormously when closing [...]

With relationship based selling, the clue is in the title! To be successful with this type of selling you need to be developing and extending relationships. The activity is similar to networking except you are building a network within the client account. Seek to keep updated with what is going on and also expand your [...]

It is easy to assume that everything is going swimmingly with a client. You are delivering what you promised. The client is paying your bills. You are talking to the client most days, surely an account review is just a waste of time?
Actually, the more regularly you work with a client on a day-to-day basis, [...]

During the account planning sessions you will have identified potential opportunities but this should actually be an ongoing activity with all priority accounts – even those not big enough to justify formal account planning sessions.

When we are working on our accounts day-in, day-out it is sometimes hard to see the wood from the trees. Taking time out to review important accounts on a periodic basis will help to protect what we have already achieved and maximise the growth potential.

Building accounts take time and focused effort. When you have a number of accounts, it may not be possible to pay the same amount of attention to each of them. Not all accounts will be worth the effort. By prioritising our accounts we can ensure that we maximise the sales we generate from the time [...]

When a business is brand new then there is an obvious need to win new clients. As the business becomes more established then the sales focus should change to be a combination of finding new clients and selling more to existing clients. The easiest sale to make is to existing clients and yet this is [...]

The other day I was asked a question which I know is a common issue so I thought I would share my response. The question was to do with broaching the subject of additional services where you could see a client had a need for them.