I was over at David Stein’s blog and came across a very funny YouTube video on PowerPoint from a comedian called Don McMillian. Having previously worked for IBM and At&T, Don is now a stand up comedian who specialises in corporate events, has appeared on American TV shows, and commercials including one for Budweiser.
I got talking to a senior salesperson recently, and was literally gob smacked when he told me about the amount of admin work that he is expected to produce on top of his sales target. He was having to spend roughly half his working week doing paperwork.
It got me to thinking that when you consider other unavoidable tasks such as travelling to and from sales meetings , the amount of time that he could possibly be spending in front of prospective clients actually selling must be tiny.
Wanting to see if there was any available information on the web, I came across an international productivity study from Proudfoot Consulting, which made for quite astonsishing reading.
This 2002 study revealed that sales people on average spend just seven percent of their time actively selling.
Studies show that women buy or influence 80% of all consumer goods. According to a David Powers Homes study they make 80% of all $180 to $500K price range and they are likely to play a significant role in other big ticket purchases such as cars etc. In fact just because they aren’t directly involved in a particular purchase doesn’t mean they aren’t strongly behind the buying decision.
The Top 10 Sales Articles is a website that I have been meaning to post about for a while and they gave me a good reason this month when they featured one of my articles Ten Reasons to take Notes during a Sales Meeting.
Thanks a lot guys, needless to say that I have been a fan of the website since it started in April 07. It is top quality on-line resource for anyone who is interested in sales and business development knowledge and advice.
The ability to create rapport with others helps to ensure success in almost every situation. Effective rapport building allows for more effective communication that is a crucial ingredient in all business interactions including but not limited to selling, negotiations and interviews.
Rapport usually happens at a level that we are unaware of so people will say that they had a gut instinct or a feeling to describe having a good or bad rapport with another person. Statements such as ” I had a good feeling about her” or ” There was something just not right about him” will be used to describe communications such as interviews or sales meetings.
Its not often that you come across an argument presented in superb totality.
Dave Stein, CEO and Founder of ES Research Group, Inc. recently posted “Sales Training Company Revenue Models” in his blog titled ” Commentary on Sales Leadership”
This post deals with
“how sales training companies make significantly more margin from training classes than consulting“
Seeking out other professionals who will act on your behalf as referral partners is an excellent and production way of securing high quality leads.
Here’s an article on the subject by C.J. Hayden. C.J. is the best-selling author of “Get Clients NOW! (AMACOM, 1999)”, “Get Hired NOW!” and “The One-Person Marketing Plan Workbook”. C.J. is a career and business coach who teaches people to make a better living doing what they love. She is a former corporate productivity consultant with over 25 years experience in business and management. C.J. has been speaking and training professionally since 1978, and coaching since 1992. She has been featured in numerous books and magazines, and widely profiled internationally by newspapers, radio, and TV. For more information, visit www.getclientsnow.com.
My very first sales position was with an insurance industry and I now can look back fondly at that experience knowing that some of the early sales skills that I learnt from my time selling life polices and critical illness cover have remained valuable and relevant to the other products that I later sold and sales roles that I worked.
Writing and publishing online articles is a great way to both promote your business by increasing the numbers of visitors and backlinks to your website.
Recording details on paper with the prospect during a sales meeting is a subject that divides a lot of salespeople. Sellers who fall into the “no to note taking camp” will say that note taking can be off putting to the prospect and only serves to stop the prospect from sharing information.
They say that it can ruin the natural flow of the conversation and can make questioning the prospect a disjointed process. I on the other hand am a firm believer in the value of taking notes Here is a list of ten reasons why I believe note taking works.
