When you start thinking about it, there is really very little reason to have to “Take A Shot In The Dark.” Increasingly, we have the ability to be very pinpointed.
Dave Brock
Throw Away Your Value Proposition, It’s Meaningless!
Hold onto your outbursts of, “Dave, you’ve lost it!” Also, recognize that I may be playing a few word games—but with a purpose.
How Do You Stop a Sales Person from Talking?
Sales people love to talk. They want to talk about their company, their products, how their products and services help solve a customer problems. Turn them on, and they won’t stop, questions don’t deter them.
Personal Referrals—Keep Them Personal
A personal referral is just that—personal. The only reasonable follow up on a personal referral is personal. The best follow up is a conversation.
Bad Commission Plans Drive Bad Sales Behaviors
I’ve been at the periphery of a number of discussions about commissions and sales. Usually, they are very polarized discussions, with people on each side taking extreme positions, neither providing useful or data based arguments, neither listening to each other and each reinforcing the others’ positions.
The Product-Focused Company
Organizing by product lines is a very common business strategy. There’s some great power to this, but if we inflict our organizational structure on the customer, making it hard for them to buy, they’ll always default to the easy to buy choice.
How Will You Justify This to Your Management?
Too often, our customers focus on price, consequently we focus on price—after all we want to be responsive to our customers.
Neutral is Not a Strategy
Too often, I meet sales people who are uncomfortable with challenging their customers. Whether it’s out of politeness (the customer is always right), or not wanting to “rock the boat” with the customer, they are non-committal.
Responding to Customer Experience Disasters
As much as we try to develop, implement, and execute outstanding customer experiences, sometimes things fall apart and we have a complete disaster. Everything goes wrong!
Presence
Often when we think about “Presence,” we think about a person’s bearing or how they present themselves. There are some people who seem to have tremendous presence.
