3 Ways Not to Suck at Sales

by | Jan 2, 2014 | Blog

Over the past 15 years I’ve sold everything from online media to mortgages to conference sponsorships so the tips below come from a vast amount of experience developing fresh contacts in different industries. Sales is sales. No matter what you are selling, you should be able to benefit from these tips: 1. Know your target We have it so easy right now in terms of being able to do fast research about the company we are calling on as well as gather information about the actual individual we are reaching out to. Some of my favorite sources of data: Crunchbase – Not only can you learn a quick tidbit or two about the company, you can see if they’ve gotten funding recently, who the execs are, etc. LinkedIn – Find out who the relevant individuals are at a company you want to penetrate, send InMails when you can’t track down an individual’s contact information by other methods. Company Website pages – Read “About Us”, “Team” or “Leadership” pages (to identify the correct points of contact), “Careers” or “We’re Hiring” pages (if they have a lot of openings they are looking to grow), and check out “Media” or “Press” pages too to scan for anything they felt was important enough to send out a press release about. Twitter profiles –People often get more personal with their Twitter bios than they might on LinkedIn. The beauty of this is that you can learn a thing or two about your prospect’s life outside of work. Very handy for building rapport. And a casual retweet or two can also warm up a prospect. 2. Know how...

6 Reasons Not to Slow Down this Holiday Season

by | Dec 2, 2013 | Blog

It’s easy to talk yourself into slowing down when the holidays come around. You’ve been working hard all year, prospects are probably on vacation, your colleagues in other parts of the company are taking it easy, and the eggnog is flowing in the lunch room. Well this is the perfect time to step it up. Here are six reasons why you should buckle down, focus and end the year strong: Other salespeople are taking it easy. This means that there are fewer competitors calling on your prospects. We all know what that means. Your call or email is more likely to get a response so it’s a great time for reaching out to all those hard to reach prospects. Many companies operate with a “use it or lose it” approach to budgets. This means that some of your prospects may have money that they need to spend or risk losing that part of their budget for the year. I’ve never met a businessperson who wants a smaller budget to work with. Wouldn’t you like to be the salesperson that calls on them at the time that they’re trying to figure out how to spend that money? It won’t be you if you’re off shopping for gifts during an extended lunch break. If you’ve already hit (or are close to hitting) your goal for the year, now is the perfect time to blow it way and make even more money. It feels great to end the year on a high note.  You can build greater rapport with partners and prospects that are also working through the holidays. This can also mean that they might...