Selling to the C-Suite (a book review)

December 11th, 2012

“I talk to salespeople to get ideas.” Executives want to talk to salespeople because salespeople are the informal information transfer system of the marketplace. Active salespeople are constantly meeting with the executive's suppliers, potential partners, and competitors. They propose ideas and make connections that stimulate business for their clients Read More...

Getting a Yes to Your Meeting Request

September 15th, 2012

"The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory." Sun Tzu 300 BC I hesitate to quote Sun Tzu's classic Art of War because it reinforces the analogy that business is like warfare, an assumption to which I don't subscribe Read More...

Inside Closing a Sale – a book review

September 7th, 2012

Brian Tracy wrote a book devoted to closing techniques, The Art of Closing the Sale. Tracy has written a thorough and focused handbook on the most important concept of old school selling: techniques for closing the sale. It covers two dozen techniques, the sandwich close, the secondary close, the walk-away close, the today-only close, the porcupine close, the sharp-angle close Read More...

Questions for Them

June 30th, 2012

Demonstrating value is an integral part of any client meeting. It's being useful to your client. It means that they are deriving benefit from their interaction with you. From the salesperson's point of view, the ideal demonstration of value is explaining how your product or service can solve a problem for your client Read More...

Selling to Friends

May 24th, 2012

If your job has a sales component to it, sooner or later you’ll step into the question of whether to sell to a friend. The question can be framed by two competing perspectives. "I always sell to friends. We already have a level of trust, and friends are the easiest people with whom to do business Read More...

The Porcupine

April 11th, 2012

My grandfather Al, was a salesman in Texas for the American Seating Company some seventy years ago. Al was a wise and gentle soul, qualities I'm sure he also had when he was a younger man. (I remember him quietly telling my uncle that putting 7-Up in scotch was a good way to ruin it.) He once told me about the air conditioning system in his company car Read More...

Wooing the C-suite

February 6th, 2012

While prowling around LinkedIn to check on the conversations in the sales groups, I recently saw questions and advice about 'selling to the C-Suite. Some salespeople espouse starting only at the CEO, CFO or COO level. Their logic is sound and simple; if you can generate some traction at that level, you're off to a good start Read More...