Matthew G. Sikich II is The Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to "Sales Training". You can find complete information on Matthew G. Sikich II and his products by visiting The 5 Buying Habits.
Three Keys to Building Relationships
Top sales professionals see themselves as "Doctors of Selling." They see themselves as professionals, well educated, acting in their "patient’s" best interest, and bound by a high code of ethics.
The medical process is the same everywhere. Whenever you go ... Views: 1147
The telesales industry has grown considerably over the past few years, creating a wide range of job vacancies. Many specialist recruitment agencies can help you find your ideal role within the telemarketing sector. Recruitment consultants work to understand your key strengths and motivations, ... Views: 1147
Listen Attentively When Others Speak
There are books, articles and multi-day courses on listening. There are audio/video-learning programs that include hours of instruction and a variety of exercises. They are all valuable and helpful, but what they teach can be distilled down into a key skill. ... Views: 1147
“With rapport anything is possible. Without is nothing is possible.”
To influence anyone in a persuasion setting (without threats, weapons or coercion) rapport is absolutely vital.
Most sales people attempt to establish rapport by finding a topic of interest that they might both have in ... Views: 1147
For many years, developing trust and rapport was considered the hallmark of a great sales process. Driving sales required exposing your sales team to a maximum number of prospects and developing trust and rapport with those prospects. As such, the primary objective for most salespeople has ... Views: 1147
What is your sales tactic for your small business or sales career? Do you know?
Often people start a business because of their expertise in a particular area. Since their primary motivation for starting the business was their love and knowledge of a particular craft, skill or service, they then ... Views: 1145
“It’s not just enough to swing at the ball. You’ve got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it.”– Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Years ago I found this quote from Babe Didrikson Zaharias and not only did it make me laugh out loud – it became a personal mantra.
Read her bio below – this ... Views: 1144
Increase your production by adding more clients and adding higher value clients. Easier said than done, right? Hopefully, no one ever told you it would be easy to sell insurance or investments. Yet, if you do certain things you can make it easier for yourself.
First, identify 3 ... Views: 1144
Many salespeople and business owners mistakenly think that negotiating is something you do near, or at the end of, the sales process, particularly when discussing price or term of the agreement.
Effective negotiating, however, is a process that begins with your first contact with your customer ... Views: 1144
Anyone who conducts marketing and sales has to deal with using the phone as an important communication tool. The problem is that most people don’t maximize its effectiveness. Using the phone poorly can inadvertently act as a detriment to our success. Understand that the phone conveys our ... Views: 1144
To increase sales at highly-profitable margins, you must connect with your most profitable target audiences. Better yet, they must connect to with you. You see, it's their choice whether or not to do business with you. However, it's your job to consistently tell them how you benefit them and why ... Views: 1144
With the coming new year, I thought it was time to take review and make some internet resolutions for the coming year.
Now these aren't the typical kind of personal resolutions like losing weight or quitting smoking.I have in mind resolutions as they relate to thetime and work each of us ... Views: 1143
Nothing is more rewarding for any business than taking an account away from a competitor. Successfully persuading a competitive user to leave their existing vendor for you takes an enormous amount of patience, skill, and strategy. Unfortunately, most business people don't approach the strategic ... Views: 1142
I suspect that you have heard the expression “If at first you don’t succeed try, try again.” This adage was created many decades ago and it remains true to this day. And even though many sales people understand it, they make a fatal mistake—they use the same approach although their original ... Views: 1140
Leave a voicemail? Don’t leave a voicemail? This is a question that sellers are passionate about. Many suggest not, but isn’t that a missed opportunity?
I always leave a message because how else will they know that you want to speak with them? In today’s world where it’s acceptable to screen ... Views: 1140
"What do you do?"
In our society this is the first question we’re asked, after "What is your name?" The real question is: “How do you answer this question?”
Do you tell people your title: clerk, programmer, driver, teacher, sales rep or receptionist — or do you answer more descriptively?
... Views: 1140
If you were asked to name your biggest competitor, whom would you name? A specific company? Maybe a specific salesperson? Possibly, you view your biggest competitor as a product instead of a company or salesperson?
Competition is all around. It may seem that competitors lurk around every ... Views: 1139
Did you know that being different is an attractor factor?
It's true!
Allow me a quick sidebar:
Last week, Bernadette, my wife and I drove to the East Coast of Florida for three days.
We stayed at the grand Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. It's a five-star hotel built in 1926.
The hotel was ... Views: 1139
Your Beliefs and Your Success
Customers buy from you when they believe in four things. These four things are 1.You 2.Your product or service 3.your Company and finally 4.Your price. If you would like to have a high closing ratio then you must first believe in these things yourself.
The ... Views: 1139
When times are tough at home, at work, or in business we as customers, business people, and as consumers become much fussier. We want more, but we don't want to part with the cash unless we are absolutely satisfied. Higher customer expectations can be frustrating for us as salespeople, and we ... Views: 1138
As a small business owner or salesperson you are always on. You are always presenting, marketing, selling and producing. Failure to acknowledge this will prevent you from being as successful as you could be. I dare say it can actually do harm to your business.
Let’s break it down and take a ... Views: 1137
I was at an event recently and one of the scheduled speakers failed to turn up. Never being short of something to say or a desire to help other business owners I volunteered to do a 10 minute 'open floor.' When asked what the most pressing sales challenges in the room were, One of the other ... Views: 1137
Lately I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how to get referrals. No doubt about it, they’re one of the quickest ways to fill your pipeline. They’re definitely easier and less stressful than cold calling. They’re more accessible, and there’s less competition to close the deal. Knowing this, ... Views: 1137
The telephone is one of the least utilized tools to grow and promote a business, yet is it one of the most effective ways to market your goods and services. Recent Direct Marketing Association statistics show telemarketing more than doubled the response rate of its closest competitor. ... Views: 1135
Do you sell features or benefits? Do you know the difference? All too often salespeople think features are key. Of course, it’s because that’s what they’ve been shown. ‘Look at all the bells, whistles, and gadgets!’ It’s as if the more gadgets, the more valuable the product or service. Well, ... Views: 1135
Recently, a window company rep called me and asked if I was interested in having a free, no-obligation sales call. I explained that we had replaced all our windows five years ago and that I was not interested. She got very annoyed and was adamant that I must want to replace some of the windows. ... Views: 1135
Web 2.0 enables Sales 2.0 and many sales people can take customer communications into their own hands and to an entirely new level. Sales reps have more control over the tools that they use, and they can be always on, answering to customers questions in the matter of minutes and not hours or ... Views: 1132
My wife and I were shopping for a new lighting fixture to hang above our dining room table. We wanted something relatively contemporary, and in our quest, we visited over a dozen stores in search of the perfect light. This experience uncovered a wide variety of mistakes that are costing ... Views: 1131
Have you have experienced the absolute pleasure of listening to a true professional salesperson closing a sale on the telephone.
There is nothing like it and it really is something you must aspire to.
There is no stress or anxiety in his voice, just a smooth confident flow which you just ... Views: 1130
What are a salesperson’s treasures? How do you find them? Treasures were found in King Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt in November of 1922. These treasures had remained uncovered even after looters had stolen so much over the years. So what and how are the treasures that selling has for you? They’re ... Views: 1130
Have you ever noticed that most ads suck?
For example, you probably saw and heard about 400-600 ads yesterday. How many of them do you even remember?
Why do most ads suck? Because marketers and advertisers follow trends. If everyone's doing it, it must be right.
Tsk, tsk. I can just hear ... Views: 1129
Most of us detest those weekly 1-1 pipeline reviews with our managers. Why? Because more often than not, the manager is calling you on the carpet to explain why this deal hasn't closed, or why that deal hasn't progressed, or why those deals were lost. Or at least we think he is. But in a ... Views: 1129
The best Multi-Level and Network Marketing Salespeople have several things in common:
1. They have adapted to the changes in the Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) business.
2. They consistently look for new (and stable) MLM Products, MLM Companies, MLM Opportunities and MLM Leads.
3. They ... Views: 1129
The Internet has changed how people do their business. Even small business owners are able to reach global market inexpensively nowadays, selling anything from apparel, collectibles, to computer software, service and coaching.
The core of every business is sales. Many of the strategies to ... Views: 1128
Salespeople, what do you have to lose by writing to Santa for what you want? Since 1952 or 1953 children have been writing letters to Santa, so why not write your own Dear Santa letter? Mine would go something like this:
”Dear Santa,
You know who I am and how old I am and that I have been a ... Views: 1128
So often we hear of individuals who get exceptional returns-on-investment from their advertising campaigns. However, what we don’t often hear are the intimate details of how these people work their strategies. Marketer Diane Hughes has agreed to give us the nitty gritty of her latest solo ad ... Views: 1127
For any sales professional, receiving a call out from "of the blue" from an unknown, incoming lead that is already interested in their products or services can brighten a day. After all, obtaining this lead did not involve any hunting. Moreover, the person seems to have interest in the products ... Views: 1127
Buying advertising slots and spreading your ad all over the net won’t do much good if the ad does not get anyone’s attention. Your ad must motivate people into following the call to action contained within the ad. Advertising is an art and we need to learn that art to write effective, ... Views: 1127
What kind of selling results are you getting your current selling strategy? "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." This quote is attributed to Albert Einstein, a pretty bright guy.
Why do we rely on the same selling strategies that don't work?
I ... Views: 1127
Blogs are the hottest thing going these days when it comes to marketing on the Internet. A blog is a way of delivering your messages and article to clients. They are a like personal web sites, easy to create and far less expensive than traditional web sites.
Just when you thought you were ... Views: 1127
No company can reach anywhere in the market full of competition without doing well on marketing and advertising fronts. Even if you consider normal life anywhere in the world even in a five minute walk a person comes across many advertisements, billboards, hoarding. Print media and electronic ... Views: 1127
Salespeople spend their time thinking about what they aren't good at and how they can get better.
We are taught to learn from our mistakes as we are growing up. Today there is a "strengths" movement afoot that suggests that what we learn from our mistakes is the characteristics of mistakes. ... Views: 1127
Many people don't realize how important transitions are when speaking. They are what makes good conversation flow and what make many speakers seem eloquent.
Plan your transitions and vary them so you don't put an audience to sleep or in to a pattern by always using the same transitions. ... Views: 1126
In many ways, good leadership is hard to define. It can't be directly measured. There's no leadership "score" or report card. In fact often the measure of leadership is qualitative rather than quantitative - although quantitative results always follow. So, the questions remains, how can you tell ... Views: 1125
Granted. You can’t always get along with everybody. There are some people on this earth who simply won’t allow you to make friends with them. However, at some point in life, you are likely to come upon a situation where a good relationship with a coworker has become strained for one reason or ... Views: 1125
Sales professionals usually ask a few questions in order to gain a better understanding of their prospect’s situation. However, most of them don’t probe deep enough into the size and scope of the problem. I remember hearing a great phrase from another sales trainer. He suggested that sales ... Views: 1125