Symptoms:
Mary was on one of her first sales calls as a new rep and the prospect, with his first question, invited her straight onto the Buyers Bus: "Tell me about your company and what you do".
Podcast: Are You Kidding Me?
Situation:
It drove Izzy crazy, and he had no clue what to do about it. Day after day, email after email, Izzy sent messages that were honest, professional and ineffective. His subject lines told the truth in short comfortable requests for the recipient to please read the message. In short, Izzy felt like all his email correspondence was going into black hole where no one read them or responded to them. He knew that getting some traction with his new line of beverages would be a challenge, but this was downright agony. Was everyone in the world so cold and callous that they just did not bother to send a reply, even if it was thanks, no thanks?
Podcast: Mind Reading and Meeting Expectations
Symptoms:
Have you ever been part of a sales call where there seemed to be little structure, where both parties seemed to be on different pages, where expectations were not met, and little was accomplished? Even worse, you expected something positive to occur but simply got a lukewarm response such as, "I need to think it over. Call me in a few days." Opportunities are squandered and the buyer seems to be in control.
Topics:
podcast
Monday Morning
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Podcast: Bulldog
Symptoms:
"Bulldog" was his nickname and he was proud of it. Guido spent years proving that no one could escape him once he made you a prospect.
Podcast: How to Get on a Roll
Symptoms:
Matt is looking at his calendar and doing some planning, knowing that many things he does look too much like random acts of mindless behavior. Looking back on past months, he feels like he was scrambling and playing catch up all the time instead of having that feeling that he had some deliberate control of his actions. He wants to get back that feeling of being on a roll, where it's like running downhill instead of uphill all the time.
Topics:
podcast
Monday Morning
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Podcast: Talk About Money!
Symptoms:
Matt hung up the phone after the bad news and couldn't believe that he had been beaten again because of his price. Knowing that he was not the lowest price on the block, he had given the prospect his best consulting expertise up front in an attempt to build his "value proposition", and then tried to save the money discussion for the end so as not to scare them away too early. He even voluntarily offered a 10% discount and some favorable terms in an attempt to win them over. After-all, it did seem like a lot of money they would be spending.
Topics:
podcast
Monday Morning
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Podcast: Buying Habits
Symptoms:
Having earned a small commission check last month from her sales job, Marta was doing her best to replace her old refrigerator and had already hit the local appliance stores, as well as a few of the Big Box outlets.
Podcast: Joint Calls with Bosses
Symptoms:
Like many business development people these days, Robin won't be going on her appointments tomorrow by herself. This time she is bringing Rich, and he is the VP of Sales from one of her largest vendors.
Podcast: Sell Yourself First?
Symptoms:
Justin was spending some time off around the holidays thinking about his 25 years in sales. There were many things to be proud of, but after a bit of soul searching, he was forced to admit that he thought he'd be a bit further along financially by now or perhaps have a more prestigious title or even work for a better company, considering the two and a half decades he was reflecting on.
Where are the Dinosaurs?
Symptoms:
Jerry never felt compelled to trust or rely on technology. In his opinion nothing beats getting out there and looking someone in the eye or at least picking up the phone and chatting live with a prospect or a customer. No one ever refused to do business with Jerry, and in many of his customers’ locations he had free rein to essentially come and go as he pleased. No way email could be that important as long as Jerry could walk in, pull up a chair and talk about personal “stuff” before staring his pitch. Jerry thought email and all this new “webinar” and virtual selling stuff was just more trouble than it was worth and never going to be as important as that face to face visit. Jerry stuck to his guns and even managed to get one of the inside team to transcribe his emails, so he was not forced to adopt that new-fangled irritation into his sales game. And then Covid-19 arrived, and Jerry was lost.
