Get Started in Public Speaking for Sales Leads

One of the best lead generation systems for direct sales professionals is to offer yourself as a free public speaker. There are literally hundreds of clubs, churches, schools and non-profit organizations near you that would love to have you come and speak to their group. There is nothing better than a system that generates an unlimited…

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The 3-4-5 Party

When a customer at one of her other parties is hesitant about hosting, Leslie Adderhold, a manager with Pink Zebra, asks them what is holding them back from having a party. Most often it is a time issue so the 3 – 4 – 5 party is a perfect solution Simply put, the 3 –…

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Math Works, Always: How Do We Tilt the Numbers in Our Favor?

In sales and marketing, we at least claim to be very numbers oriented. We have metrics around everything: Click-throughs Bounces Open rates Time spent on a page MQL, SQL, SAL Daily/weekly dials Daily/weekly conversations/meetings Demos Pipeline Coverage Win Rates Average Deal/Transaction Value Sales Cycle Time Lifetime Customer Value Renewal Rates ….. I could go on.…

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“Active Listening” is Not a Technique

Catching up on my reading, I ran across an article on Active Listening. It was focused on sales people and the author made the statement, “Active listening makes them feel like they are being heard…” I’m sure that’s not what the author intended to communicate, but it got me thinking about many other things I hear and…

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Leveraging Your Information Advantage

In the “good old days” of selling (if there ever were any), a lot of sales people reveled in their “information advantage.” Prospects and customers relied on sales people to educate them on products and solutions. Those days are long gone, customers are self-educating on the web. They no longer have to rely on sales people…

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5 Simple Steps to Easy Sales Forecasting

Let’s suppose that your business experiences a 10% increase in customer orders in the upcoming three months. To take advantage of this opportunity, you might need to order more supplies, introduce changes to your work schedule or even hire someone to help out with the added workload. If you don’t have enough time to adjust,…

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Product versus Solution Selling

It must be that time of year, but recently I’ve gotten a number of queries from thoughtful executives: “Dave, we need to transform the way we sell from product to solution selling……” That statement is always a little confusing to me, naturally I ask, “What does that mean and why do you want to change?”…

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