I am a Platinum author on evancarmichael.com and the nice people here provide me (as they do each author) with statistics on the three “most read” of my articles twice monthly.
****Professional Telephone Selling Project The Right Image and ****Learn To Negotiate Successfully In Business are consistently the most popular, almost always swapping first and second positions.
They are followed closely by ****Prospecting For Business and **** Professional Telephone Selling 6 Check Points To Evaluate The Call.
Then come ****Your Vision, **** Brand Matters and **** Brand Positioning and these are followed by a complete mix of the rest of my articles.
So what? You may be thinking. Let’s take these articles in order of their popularity with YOU.
****1. The Telephone And Selling
As a Sales and Marketing Coach I know that people AREN’T reading the articles on Professional Telephone Selling or Prospecting because these are activities they love. Given the choice many would rather have a tooth extracted without anaesthetic. They’re reading them because they know they are activities they have to get to grips with.
To put it bluntly, many people are absolutely useless on the phone yet its role in the sales process remains significant. As such it warrants and receives a huge amount of attention.
Tip 1: Use your common sense and quit trying to sell. Get yourself a good telephone manner. Learn how to speak to people in a professional, businesslike way – If you have problems with that just think how you like people to speak with you. Then learn what questions to ask that will help you to establish whether this person has a particular problem that you just might have the solution to. Respect your time and theirs and use the telephone to qualify whether a meet is a good idea for both of you.
****2. Successful Negotiation
Likewise negotiation isn’t up there with the latest Harry Potter must-read. Yes, it’s important to learn how to negotiate successfully (in all kinds of situations, not just business – take a look at your kids if you don’t believe me – they go through a stage when they’ve made it an art form before they lose it and become like the rest of us). Most people when thinking of negotiation in business tend to automatically think first of price. That is a big area and one that I train my clients on.
Tip 2: Continue to read Learn To Negotiate Successfully In Business to help you in negotiation situations. But also shift your focus. We all know we’re actually much better off avoiding price negotiation situations wherever possible. And the way to do that is to spend more time sorting out Brand and Brand Position. This is NOT something that’s just for the Big Boys. Get this right and you’ll find you’re negotiating on price less… and less… and less.
IN SUMMARY:
A shift in YOUR focus and perspective often has just as much bearing on the increased success you find you achieve when working with a Sales and Marketing Coach as the actual techniques you learn. A good coach, however, will adapt those techniques and only ask you to incorporate the ones you feel comfortable using.
REMEMBER with any new technique you learn: If it doesn’t feel right and you wouldn’t like anyone using it on you, don’t touch it with a barge pole. If it does feel right - go for it.
Happy hunting!
Linda
PS Please look around at my other articles here and more at http://www.sellingforbusiness.com
Not Getting Enough Profitable Business? - To learn more about this author, visit Linda Mattacks's Website.
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Linda Mattacks
(Visit Linda's Website)
"Linda Mattacks is one of those rare
professionals who combine deep
strategy-awareness with a thoroughly
practical approach to business marketing.
What's more, she is as much a hard-nosed
and sales-driven results seeker as she is
an intuitive people person who understands
what makes everyone tick. She has built a
wealth of experience in sales training,
business research, marketing campaign
planning and project management. Linda has
helped organisations of all types and
sizes in the UK and Europe to learn more
about their customers and markets, and
turn that knowledge into revenue. Her
mature and human manner has won her both
business partners' and colleagues'
complete trust, which has opened many new
opportunities for all involved.” - Jaakko
Alanko - MD McCann-Erickson, Business
Division, London, England ... Linda
Mattacks M IDM (the Institute of Direct
Marketing) is a trainer and mentor. She
has developed Selling For Business, a
course that combines the sales, research
and contact marketing skills that enable
individual entrepreneurs and small
businesses to compete successfully with
large organisations. Please visit www.sel
lingforbusiness.com for more details
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