Sales

What is your company's value proposition? This seems like a simple question, but having facilitated hundreds of sales training workshops, it remains one of the top challenges facing sales professionals today.

Over the many years that I traveled in the trenches with salespeople, I heard a handful of questions that seemed to be part of the salesman's playbook. “What's your timing on this decision?” was among the more common.

When you walk in empty headed, you walk out empty handed.
 

I have a favorite question I ask salespeople: “How important is trust as it relates to your ability to get results as a salesperson?”

You have an excellent ongoing customer — a steady, high-revenue, profitable and long-time account.

The last thing every salesperson wants is to be like other salespeople. Can you name another profession where there is such a strong distaste for being like all of the others in the profession?

H ave you ever come across a solution to a problem that was so simple you almost rejected the solution out of hand because it was just too simple? "Surely there's more to it than just that," you reasoned!

In my last column, I told the story of Mark Williams, who is in sales for a mechanical contractor.

Qualifying! It's probably the most under-valued and under-performed activity in sales. If almost any sales organization were to double its effectiveness at qualifying – which is painfully easy to achieve – it would deliver at least 10 percent to its bottom line overnight.

In her latest book, author and revenue coach Kristin Zhivago teaches business owners and managers a proven method for increasing their sales revenue. "Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy," can be thought of as a how-to book for revenue growth.