SALES INSIGHTS
Explore. Educate. Expand.
Don’t let travel restrictions or canceled events impact your numbers.
Get weekly insights on how to sell through. Sign up today!
Looking For Something?
Topics & Categories
How to Tell Genuine Sales Objections from Insidious Put-Offs
Here’s a question about sales objections I encountered a lot when we did lead generation work:
I keep running into objections before I even have a chance to introduce myself. What is the best way to overcome “I’m too busy,” “I do not have time” or “Call back in two months?”
One of the challenges we face with sales objections is knowing when we have a bona fide objection as opposed to the prospect simply trying to get rid of us.
…
How to Tell Genuine Sales Objections from Insidious Put-OffsRead More »
How to Use the Verbal Cushion in Resolving Sales Objections
When you’re in the field, your sales activity requires the use of various communication elements, like the verbal cushion. To be effective in sales, you need to know how to communicate with your prospect. However, you also need to be adept at using the various communication elements at your disposal.
…
How to Use the Verbal Cushion in Resolving Sales ObjectionsRead More »
2 Tips You Need to Know When Opening the Sales Call
Back in 2016, I penned an article for Selling Power that addressed selling and opening the sales call in the new digital era where we are inundated with apps, devices, and instant price comparison.
…
2 Tips You Need to Know When Opening the Sales CallRead More »
The One Prospecting Idea You Need to Know as a Coach
Salespeople pursuing a single point of contact when prospecting is like an engineer designing a system with a single point of failure. One mishap and your whole project crashes!
When Prospecting, Don’t Create a Single Point of Failure
My director of technology once told me about an experience he had in the early creation days of our call center. He said he had called into a local manufacturing company and was hooked up with the director of sales. He had done everything right, moving the relationship towards selling a set of training programs for the company’s sales team.
…
The One Prospecting Idea You Need to Know as a CoachRead More »
6 Powerful Ideas That Will Make You a Master of Cold Calling
When making cold calls and opening sales calls on the phone, you need guideposts, touch points of some kind to help guide your interaction. Now, some sales trainers would say you need a script when cold calling. However, I think a cold calling script is too rigid. A sales rep must be flexible and address people where they find them mentally and attitudinally, not where the script says your prospect should be.
…
6 Powerful Ideas That Will Make You a Master of Cold CallingRead More »
Get the Secrets to Effective Prospecting this year at ALSD
One of the main points we make in our training and coaching is that throughout your sales process, from prospecting to close and beyond, you have to be able to get out of your head and see things from your prospect or client’s perspective.
…
Get the Secrets to Effective Prospecting this year at ALSDRead More »
7 Cold Calling No-No’s You Need to Stop Doing Immediately
This post on cold calling was originally published on Dec 19, 2016 and updated with current material on June 19, 2019.
I was reading a blog post put out by another sales trainer titled “7 Ways to Make Cold Calling Easier”. It got me wondering, where do these tips come from? Were these ideas formulated by this trainer or were his insights rehashed from basic advice you can find anywhere? Was his advice based on empirical data, or was it based on opinions from his experiences in sales? And at that moment, I had an epiphany. This wasn’t the first time I came across a basic ‘tips to cold calling’ post. And it wasn’t the first time I was turned off by an article like this.
…
7 Cold Calling No-No’s You Need to Stop Doing ImmediatelyRead More »
3 Quick and Easy Steps to Achieving Sales Success
Sales Wisdom I’ve Discovered in my Career
Throughout my time in sales, I’ve researched numerous complex theories, process descriptions, tactics, and strategies. In addition to these, I have also come across a number of quips from sales gurus who try to encapsulate sales success in a simple phrase that can be easily understood, even by a 5th grader.
For example, Zig Ziglar was famous for saying, “Either you’re green and growing or you’re ripe and rotten.”
…
3 Quick and Easy Steps to Achieving Sales SuccessRead More »
How to Overcome the Mistakes of the Old Sales Closes
Previously, we reviewed a few of the classic sales closes and how they don’t work in our current sales environment. There are two other classic closes that we should review to understand how they fit into our new global sales environment.
…
How to Overcome the Mistakes of the Old Sales ClosesRead More »
Secrets of the Sales Close You Need to Know
In the last post, I recounted a study from Mutual of Omaha that examined and challenged this myth about the sales close.
If you recall, out of 1,000 really good leads who were poised to say “yes” to the deal, only about 7% closed because the salespeople didn’t ask for the sale.
…
Why ‘Maybe’ Is The Worst Sales Response You Can Get
This post on sales responses was originally published on Oct 21, 2016 and updated on May 15, 2019.
When we get our prospects to clarify their objections, we want to get them to specifically identify the problem or challenges they are finding with our solution.
Remember, our overall goal is to get the prospect to say something. You’ve got to get them to say either yes, no, or maybe.
And for the record, maybes suck. …
Why ‘Maybe’ Is The Worst Sales Response You Can GetRead More »
Overlooked Secrets to Resolving Sales Objections
In the last post, we reviewed three steps to resolving sales objections and in doing so, we brought the sales process closer to achieving a commitment. Those 3 steps were:
- Remind them of their need.
- Remind them that your offering addresses their need.
- Create a colorful description of them experiencing the benefits provided by your offering.
Now, here’s the kicker when resolving sales objections: The more specific the objection you’re facing, the better chance you have of resolving it!
…
3 Steps to Resolving Objections and Winning the High Ground
Here’s a tip I’ve learned in my travels through the sales landscape – words matter! The words you use help frame the situation. And how you frame the situation will either expand or limit your options in resolving objections and mastering negotiations.
Consider the negotiation process. There’s plenty of phraseology out there that highlights “battling” an objection. Now, if I’m trying to do business with you, I don’t know if we are necessarily going to do battle. I think the wiser choice is to first find out where we both agree. …
3 Steps to Resolving Objections and Winning the High GroundRead More »
How to Build Better Responses to Sales Objections
Here’s an sample sales call dealing with sales objections pulled from our field experience.
My team and I were working with an NHL team that was selling a complex sponsorship package to a small to mid-sized furniture chain around Columbus, Ohio. In this particular situation, the sales rep was selling this package to a furniture store with four locations. …
How to Build Better Responses to Sales ObjectionsRead More »
Unleash the Potential of Your Sales Team
Help your salespeople lead masterful sales conversations, build their pipelines, resolve rebuttals, increase win rates, negotiate the best agreements, and drive growth for strategic accounts with Tyson Group sales training and performance systems.