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Best Sales Strategy for Your Company

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: Let's say that you failed to close a company who decided against buying what you were trying to sell them. Does it make any sense to return to them and offer to sell them what they are willing to buy?

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Best Sales Strategy for Your Company

What would you do if one of your sales reps called at 5 PM on a Friday, the last day of the month, on the final day of a bad quarter and said, "Good News - I closed ___________!"(insert any huge company here) You'd get excited, your heart would beat a little faster, you'd feel relieved because things seem to be turning around, and you're thinking, "This is good, damn it."

You ask, "What did you close them for?"

Your salesperson responds, "They bought a ___________."

(the least expensive thing in the smallest possible quantity)

You know that it would have been more appropriate for them to buy a _________________.

(the most expensive thing you sell)

You yell, "What? Are you kidding? How did that happen? And you're calling me to brag about it? Are you crazy?"

The salesperson says, "But we're in!"

So here are some questions for you;

Is it better to "be in" with something sold today, or to still be out, and hoping to sell them the appropriate solution tomorrow?

Is it better to say "they're a customer" now, or is it better to wait and do it the right way later?

Is it better to know you have to sell them one more time, or take a chance that you may never have the chance to sell them what they really need?

Let's explore the opposite scenario.

Let's say that you failed to close a company who decided against buying what you were trying to sell them. Does it make any sense to return to them and offer to sell them what they are willing to buy?

These situations occur on a daily basis in most companies, (at least the companies with enough activity taking place) and everybody has a different preference as to how they should be handled. What would you do?

Scenario 1 - happy to sell them something or wait to sell them the right solution?

Scenario 2 - return and try to sell what they're willing to buy or move on?

Here's another way of looking at it. In scenario 1, you waited to sell them the right solution and they wouldn't buy it. So now you have moved to scenario 2...

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Home > Sales > Dave Kurlan > Best Sales Strategy for Your Company >
Article Tags: appropriate solution, daily basis, heart, preference, right solution, sales reps, salesperson

About the Author: Dave Kurlan
RSS for Dave's articles - Visit Dave's website

Dave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development.  He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling (Dan Seidman), Stepping Stones (Deepak Chopra and Brian Tracey) and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 (David Riklan).

Click here to visit Dave's website
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