Articles under ‘Closing Sales’

Anyone following me on Twitter is probably used to my Saturday night tweets whilst the X Factor is on TV.
If you have been watching it recently or read the news you will have seen that the twins that call themselves ‘Jedward’ are still in the competition and there are some very talented acts that are [...]

Please excuse this little rant. It’s just that it saddens me deeply to see small business owners do the right thing and invest in better marketing their business only to find they have nothing to show for it except, perhaps, a pretty website and business card. They came to me for help with their sales [...]

Most people could sell a house but what if you had to sell a house every single day? What if you had several sales people who each needed to sell a house every day?
So many businesses approach sales in an unstructured way. They may get away with it where its just the owner doing the [...]

You have an important decision to make. You have to choose between three suppliers. Each have similar offerings. One came from a cold call, another you discovered by searching the internet, and the last was recommended by someone you trust.
If you are like most people, your decision will be heavily swayed by a recommendation from [...]

There are two ways of looking at what you sell. You can focus on the individual products and services or you can focus on the problems you solve. The most common approach is to have a product centric focus. There is no doubt that a product centric approach can produce sales – especially where there [...]

There is nothing more natural than stories. From a very early age we are exposed to stories. When we talk to friends and family we share stories. It may surprise you to discover that one of the secrets of top sales people is storytelling. We are not talking fairy stories but anecdotes of experiences with [...]

If you had a unresolved problem for which you wanted a solution, would you rather speak to someone who is a specialist in solving such problems or a generalist? All things being equal, even if we had a great relationship with an existing generalist supplier, we might prefer to talk to a specialist.

Imagine you are making a major purchase and you have to choose between three potential suppliers who have similar offerings. One supplier is a major brand. The second is not a major brand but you have already worked with them and you have been very happy with their work. The third supplier is also not [...]

Finding new customers is much harder than selling to existing customers. Look at any successful company and the chances are that a major proportion of their sales will come from existing customers. They may not necessarily be selling the same thing all the time but they are still selling more to the same [...]

You are a business owner not a sales professional. Winning sales is just one of a long list of things to think about. Why complicate matters? Selling is actually quite simple if you look at it slightly differently. I have spent many years looking for ways of helping the owners of small businesses and professionals [...]