How to Turn Down Clients Without Alienating Them

If you’re still building your customer base, enhancing your reputation, improving the quality of your services or products, acquiring customer testimonials and developing a ground-swell of word-of-mouth support, then you’ll likely be exceedingly grateful for—and accept—every client walking in the door.
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Why Are They Buying?

Until we and the customer have really internalized why they need to buy, every deal is at risk. What are they trying to achieve? Why are they trying to do it? What are the consequences of not doing it? Why is it important to them now? What’s driving their need to do something?
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Losing the Negotiation Before It Starts

Sales people seem to be obsessed with negotiation. They read books, they take all sorts of classes, they strategize “negotiation” sessions. Oddly, when I push on the negotiation issue, most negotiations that sales people focus on are about price.
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The Wrong Hero

If you want your marketing messages to translate into sales at premium prices, tell stories in which customers and prospects can experience the joy of your offerings—even if they haven’t tried them yet.
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In the Eyes of the Beholder

While price is a dollar amount, value is the relative worth or desirability of a thing (product, service, idea, opportunity, etc.) to the end user or beholder.
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Using Barter to Boost Sales

Businesses can utilize barter to boost sales production. It’s easy, it’s smart and it works like a charm. In its simplest form, bartering involves an equal trade. One business swaps a good or service for another.
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