Our experience in talking to buyers and clients has brought it home to us that there are some bad salespeople out there. When I say ‘bad’, I don’t mean that they are corrupt or nasty; just inept and poorly-skilled. Buyers have their top-5 ‘hates’ when it comes to what sales people do or don’t do.

Here are some signs that things aren’t as they could be: read further at http://www.soldlab.com/content/readMore1/infobox/featured_news/template/default/active_id/5

Blame Yourself – Yep the buck stops with you! Take an hour, or a day and spend time reflecting on 2011. Be brutally honest with yourself. What worked, what didn’t, and what, given the opportunity, would you do differently. No blaming customers, the economy, the boss, employees or your mother! Take responsibility.

Sell Less – That’s a scary thought! Well it is true, you need to sell less and invest more. Invest in getting to know (really know) your customers and your prospects. This is an economy based on trust, based on value, and it is all about relationships. Make a list of information you really need to know about your customers then devote 2012 to getting the answers. Sell less, the truth is you’ll sell more!

Limit Connections – Yes I really mean it – sort of! Networking is a lifestyle (not a task) so take advantage of every opportunity, but go one more step and focus your networking energy in 2012. You’re a great networker, make 2012 the year you become a Master Networker.  Master Networkers keep a focused list of individuals they need to know. People they can learn from, growth with and those that can connect them to other Master Networkers. Limiting your connections expands the power of your network– both in quality and number.

Read more at http://www.soldlab.com/content/readMore1/infobox/featured_news/template/default/active_id/5

In my previous post (Mind-control in Selling) I was talking about how selling is fundamentally a question of the influence of mind over mind, and how the formula for developing a mind control is very simple.  It is a study of the five senses and the manner in which they influence the mind, and a constant effort to apply in practice what you have learned.

You have learned, in the early grades at school, that the five senses are sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.  These five senses may be called the avenues to the mind. It is impossible for any sensation to reach the objective mind except through one of the five senses.

Read more at 

http://www.soldlab.com/using-five-senses-in-selling/

CIO Insight recently published a slideshow about application adoption trends over the next year. According to a recent survey from SnapLogic, of which over 110 CIOs and other top execs took part, CIOs and other senior tech executives continue to pursue BI, analytics, productivity/collaboration, financial, sales and social media tools, as they strive to integrate IT with their organization’s strategic objectives.

This is yet further proof that the BI/analytics space is hot right now, and more and more companies are realizing that business performance can be largely improved by leveraging these tools.

“BI, for certain, remains hot. But so are other apps, such as those that are Saas/cloud-driven.”

Aberdeen Research are one of the research firms that have been following the SaaS Business Intelligence trend for a while now. They recently published a paper called “SaaS Business Intelligence: Driving Agility through Self-Service“. The paper ultimately recognizes the fact that the increased adoption of SaaS in the business intelligence field validates that it is increasingly becoming a viable option for BI deployment in all types of organizations.

Instead of giving you a long-winded written summary of the report, we’ve decided to pick out some of the more interesting numbers!

We all know how frustrating it is when a sales opportunity we’ve been working on suddenly stalls out. Our instinctive response is to begin thinking of ways to accelerate the prospect’s decision about the sale, usually by offering some financial incentive (a discount). Paradoxically, this often has the opposite effect. The prospect senses your eagerness, which may be perceived as desperation, making you less attractive, and causing a further delay in purchasing your product or service. Is there a better way?

Read more at http://www.soldlab.com/news/2011/9/14/jump-start-stalled-sales-four-steps-to-help-close-faster.html

The telephone is your lifeline to sales.

Technology comes and goes but the phone will likely be your lifeline to revenue for decades to come. If the phone is one of our primary modes of engaging the marketplace, why do so many sales professionals perform so poorly on this stage?

Selling is about connecting and engaging with the other party. Your sales quota may be stressful, but there’s rarely gain in exposing that to your prospect.

Read more at 

http://www.soldlab.com/ten-reasons-salespeople-fail/

Salespeople won’t always get the call back, get the appointment, get to meet the decision maker, or get the order. Now it is, of course, unreasonable to expect to always get what we want. But, it is reasonable to believe that we might get what we want more often if we changed the way we asked for it. The sad fact is that one of the reasons we struggle to get sales results is because we simply don’t ask for what we want - or we don’t ask for it directly. Here are five types of questions that few salespeople ask that can move the sales cycle along and help you achieve your goals.

1) Qualifying Questions

Most salespeople are taught to probe for “pain” – to find out what’s...Read more at 

While I was writing this post, I had the B52s (screaming) in the background. The DJ was playing one of their songs, they weren’t actually here in real life… although this wouldn’t have been unrealistic, seeing as during the opening Keynote of M.Benioff there were, amongst others, Neil Young and MC Hammer, who actually testified as being Salesforce users (Salesforce helped them during their tours, for example).

When Prince uses Bime to analyze the opportunity cost in banning the publishing of videos on Youtube… that will be the day 

I love everything about sales and the psychology of selling and I read as much as I can on the subject. I always have a book with me to learn from, to inspire me and to keep me on the sales edge so that I am constantly refining the processes and strategies that I teach in my books, audios, DVDs and seminars…

As you might expect I am not particularly squeamish when it comes to closing people down however over the last few nights I have been reading a book on closing written in the mid-1980’s. It is appalling and what’s more some of the tactics in it are based on the cheesiest of theories. Here’s one tip from the sales training book…

Read more at http://www.soldlab.com/how-not-to-close-a-client/