Recent Articles From EvanCarmichael.com http://www.evancarmichael.com/ http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/The-Recruitment-Rip-Off.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/The-Recruitment-Rip-Off.html This unbelievable balderdash was downloaded from a well known recruitment website. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Are-Customer-Satisfaction-Surveys-a-Waste-of-Money.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Are-Customer-Satisfaction-Surveys-a-Waste-of-Money.html Customer satisfaction surveys are definitely in! Regardless of where you go or what you buy, the chances are that you will be asked to fill in a form to indicate your level of satisfaction with the product or service. Hotels, restaurants, fast food outlets, car rental companies and motor dealerships are all on the bandwagon. And we customers should be pleased that our suppliers are taking such a laudable interest in our welfare. With all this focus on customers, one would expect to observe a huge outbreak of brilliant customer service and awesome products in the marketplace. Sadly, this isn’t the case. My Mercedes dealership is still the same ineffectual, unreliable, unresponsive clod he was three years ago. All the surveys and irritating telephone calls have not made one iota of difference. So what is the problem? http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Professional-Sales-Management--Key-to-Sales-Success.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Professional-Sales-Management--Key-to-Sales-Success.html In an environment where customer demands predominate, because competition is both relentless and increasingly international, the world of selling must accommodate a dramatically changed world of buying. Critically, sales management must catch up to this new world of selling. All too often, many sales forces are populated by dispirited, burned out salespeople and managed by short-term-oriented and narrowly focused sales managers. Indeed many sales forces are managed as if it were 30 years ago and the sales managers themselves were salespeople doing the work, instead of orchestrating the action. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/The-Power-of-the-WinLoss-Analysis.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/The-Power-of-the-WinLoss-Analysis.html Typical success rates for closing major new proposals are typically less than 20% when several suppliers are asked to present. Companies often spend tens of thousands of Rands (if not hundreds of thousands) in an effort to win business. For those who failed in their bids, little feedback is offered for why a competitor was a better fit. As a result, the likelihood of winning the next major opportunity remains roughly the same. Independently collected research data, gathered from interviewing supplier selection teams, offers surprisingly simple fixes that losing competitors could use to improve success rates. Yet, relatively few sales forces consistently gather quality data about their losses to permit a legitimate benchmarking, tracking, and management of their proposal and presentation process. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Is-Your-Sales-Team-a-Winner-or-on-the-Way-Out.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Is-Your-Sales-Team-a-Winner-or-on-the-Way-Out.html Think your sales team is in good shape because your customers rank them either good or very good? Think again. Nearly 80 percent of all supplier deserters rate their previous supplier as "good" to "very good," so the outlook for anything less than world-class excellence is not only disappointing but potentially career threatening. A 15-year study on world-class sales by The HR Chally Group determined that only 21 of 7,300 sales forces evaluated by 80,000 customer decision-makers were categorized as “world-class” by their customers. Benchmarking research within these same 17 "world-class" sales organizations, found that they all shared at least six of the following eight best practices: see article http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/The-Nine-Most-Common-Hiring-Mistakes-and-How-to-Avoid-Them.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/The-Nine-Most-Common-Hiring-Mistakes-and-How-to-Avoid-Them.html To err in hiring is human – and very expensive. Many “standard” hiring procedures are actually common mistakes, so to choose more competent candidates, prepare to revise your hiring methods. Learn the nine hiring errors managers often make, then eliminate them from your hiring practices to help you choose only the cream of the crop. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/The-IT-Sales-Model-is-Broken.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/The-IT-Sales-Model-is-Broken.html We are in the midst of a genuine revolution in the way I.T. sales are made. At the heart of this revolution is the issue of competing on value. In many cases, the differences between traditional sales approaches and value-based selling appear to be subtle, but in fact, they are profound, requiring changes in strategy, corporate culture and selling skills. Today’s markets are characterized by rapid commoditization, and it is seldom possible to compete on the basis of product features and benefits for any length of time, if margins are to be maintained or improved. Increasingly, the question being posed to suppliers, by their most important customers is – “How much better off will my company be if I buy your product/service or business solution?” http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Hiring-Ineffective-Salespeople-Costs-Real-Estate-Industry-Millions.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Hiring-Ineffective-Salespeople-Costs-Real-Estate-Industry-Millions.html If ever there was an industry that lives or dies by the performance of it’s salespeople, it is real estate. But real estate sales, like insurance sales, suffers from a cripplingly high failure rate when hiring new salespeople, and the reason is that these industries employ highly ineffective processes for identifying and hiring fresh sales talent. In most real estate companies the 80/20 rule (or something akin to it) applies. For example in one major national agency 15% of agents deliver 78% of revenues. What this means is that hiring effective agents is a purely random event - No more effective than tossing a coin. http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Matching-the-Right-Type-of-Salesperson-to-Your-Customers.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Matching-the-Right-Type-of-Salesperson-to-Your-Customers.html The most successful sales managers recognise that all good salespeople must have certain vital skills and motivations. The degree and type required, however, will vary according to what customers need in order to use the product or service. The best strategy is achieved by matching salesperson skills, focus, and motivation to best serve these needs. Market and customer analysis by The HR Chally Group has identified four distinctly different types of customers. They, in turn, respond most positively to four different types of salespeople: - Closers - Consultants - Relationship - Display (Friendly Order Takers) http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Innovation-in-the-Sales-Environment.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/Sales/3147/Innovation-in-the-Sales-Environment.html In an environment where customer demands predominate, because competition is both relentless and increasingly international, the world of selling must accommodate a radically changed world of buying. If you cannot differentiate yourself by what you sell, and are unwilling to differentiate by how you sell, you will, by default, have to differentiate by how much you sell it for. Hence sales forces are seeking new and innovative ways of selling products that are increasingly commoditised.