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Bridging An Objection

Reporting back on a new business team’s collective objection handling routines recently, the CEO chipped in with a technique he termed bridging. In one sense it struck me as a modern way of moving on from the feel-felt-found form of words. It stuck in the memory of the Chief

Project Pre-Mortems

Here’s a technique that can be applied to just about any sales campaign really, even though I’ve tagged this as having particular impact for new product pushes. This evolution of proactive risk analysis has been around as a tool for a while, as evidenced by these 700 words

Collecting Testimonials

I know only a rare few solution sellers that are good at this. Yet it is an essential part of the job. I even provided a web app a few years ago to support larger salesteams in their reference quest. One salesteam I helped made each salesperson produce a glowing

What To Discount?

I hate to discount. We’ve all been confronted by a spreadsheet with multiple options for pricing the components of your bid. When you tot up either what you want the client to take or their entire wishlist, it’s way over their budget or above what you know they’

I'm In Your Area

Here’s a reminder about a wheeze among the oldest of sales lines. A friend of mine was having difficulty finally pinning down a prospect to a signature. His frustration was magnified by the distance involved between him and his prospect. 4,500 miles, one ocean and several time zones.

Donut Fine

Here’s a wonderful idea with two strands of sales insight. It comes from the Blackberry device makers, Research In Motion (RIM). The story starts shortly after their 1997 IPO. As the stirrings of dotcom mania raced towards a maddening burst bubble, RIM’s co-founders, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis,

Celebrate Progress

Here’s something extremely useful I picked up from an old HBR [http://hbr.org/2010/01/the-hbr-list-breakthrough-ideas-for-2010/ar/1]. Each year it seems they suggest ten breakthrough ideas for the coming twelve months. Last year’s first was a belter. What really motivates workers – understanding the value of progress

Unify Simplify Amplify

Here’s a branding lesson [http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663249/100k-of-free-branding-advice-in-just-three-words] from a New York expert in the field. It has resonance for salesteams trying to get everyone moving in the same direction. [http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663249/100k-of-free-branding-advice-in-just-three-words] Self-explanatory in nature is of course a thing of beauty. In

Onlooker Cull

Journalists, always high on the list of the general public’s most hated professions, have become less unpopular since the emergence of bankers in the public consciousness. I heard a pair of them the other day discussing the appearance in articles of onlookers. Apparently, whenever you read the phrase “…an

Sequel Franchise

Here’s an all-too-common pitch from a rep when something fresh has just been launched. > Here’s our new product for you. You’ve got to take it. It’s better than the last one. But how often are such ‘upgrades’ better than the their predecessor? Even in the