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salespodder

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Anchoring, Amplification

Yet more body-language type techniques I came across today. I was with a sales force that 2-years prior had a boat-load of skills training around pitching and posturing. During our discussion (and bear in mind we spent only 30 secs on this) it seemed to me like reading a page

Retreat & Repeat

In a first meeting in the morning, the potential customer started off by saying how they remembered the initial cold call from one of my guys as it was all about “retreat and repeat”. I’d never heard this description before so asked what it meant. Apparently, it’s where

Banking Commission

I took a step back during a meeting with a fella called Paul Walker recently. He was giving me insight into how come his salesrep retention rates were the envy of his industry. And impressive they are; average tenure being seven-and-a-half years. He believed a major reason was down to

Kyosei Selling

Kyosei is pronounced, so I’m told, ‘kay-o-say’. Had an entertaining meeting early today with a guy called Phil Browne, with terrific growth plans for his Canon (photocopier to document management) reseller business. His company has been going for several years, and we discussed their strategic theme; Kyosei. It’s

Beware 'Jam Tomorrow'

I’m involved in 3 sales cycles at the moment that are all suffering from the same distraction. Jam Tomorrow is a phrase, the origins of which eluded me during those dark, pre-internet days. In sales circles it simply refers to a hollow promise of more business to come, if

Don't Forget The Foreplay, Boys

I was reminded of the difference in the approaches of the sexes to selling, when running through an ideal first meeting template with one of my new winners. When I entered sales over 15 years ago now, it was a rare occurrence indeed to find girls with order pads, and

Make "Informed Decision"

My boiler room guys are progressing nicely in London. They’ve been getting a decent number of pitches out there to gain meetings with companies in our sweet spot. A couple of times though, with a pitch only half-delivered, literally a nano-second into it, some people have simply said they’

A Few Good (Sales) Men

Quite a few courtroom based movies have lessons for sales people. The way lawyers ask questions is always fertile ground for learning. In this case, the movie sees Jack Nicholson’s old school military leader duped by Tom Cruise’s young gun lawyer into admitting wrong-doing. Based on a stage

Qualification Intel

A couple of my customers recently have shown me a one-page doc they use to assess deal Qualification. In the main, most sales training materials will have some kind of qualification checklist element. Probably the most widely known is “scotsman”. It suggests you should conjure up questions/scenarios that come

Get Positive or Roll Over, Loser

I was having one of those semi-intellectual chats you have after a bottle of fine 12-year old single malt whisky, with a top pal of mine. He’s quite into reading books on business and gave me a hefty tome from 91, called The Great Reckoning by James Davidson &