Most of the businesses in the United States earn the majority of their revenue by selling to existing clients.  While that’s a component in the overall success and profitability of a business it is critically important to prospect and develop business relationships with new clients on a consistent basis.  Here are eight tried and true tips to help you improve your prospecting skills:

Schedule time for prospecting every day: Salespeople should schedule a minimum of one-hour per day dedicated to prospecting or new business development …

I am a traditionalist when it comes to sales. I’m far from old school but I have become fairly set in my ways on what technology is best and works most often. Every now and then I get a little geeky and try out something new. This week the new tool I started using was Skype. Skype is software that enables the world’s conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people …

Make the sales process a collaborative one and you’ll find yourself in the position of trusted advisor instead of just another company trying to make a sale.

One of the most difficult and feared situations in selling is getting hit with hard to answer questions early in the sales process. Questions such as: “Why should I buy from you?” and “What makes your product better than your competitor’s?” For most salespeople these questions are an irresistible invitation for what I refer to as the “Presentation Trap,” an open invitation from the …

A reader sent me this link and though it nessassary to pass along. Many people in sales are looking for new and fresh leads that they can target for their product and services. LeadVine allow you to do this with thousands of other people just like you.
LeadVine is an online social community that simplifies how companies find new customers. Search listings and make money with the information that you already have.

How can LeadVine make you easy money?
Everyday people come across information that is useless to them but useful …

Avoid Getting Your E-mails Deleted

From the E-Business Newsletter
It’s easy to fall into bad e-mailing habits because the whole format can begin to feel casual. By now everyone knows to avoid writing in all caps and using emoticons, but people often make the mistake of shooting off overly chummy professional e-mails and forming a devil-may-care disregard for grammar and punctuation. Simple rule of thumb: treat e-mail the same way you’d treat phoning someone. Get to the point, but be polite about it. Here is a look at some of the subtler …

Why it’s time to rethink one of the most derided marketing tactics.
Most marketing pros would say that Samantha Ettus is going about it all wrong. That’s because the CEO of Ettus Media Management, a New York City public relations and branding agency, spends a big chunk of her time working the phones, pitching herself and her clients to people she’s never met.

According to the conventional wisdom, that’s a big waste of time. Cold calling, the experts agree, is annoying and irritating, an unwanted imposition on busy people. What’s more, they …

You’ve got just eight short seconds to grab your prospect’s attention and land an executive sales appointment. This sales expert shows you how.
By Tony Parinello

Before you pick up the phone to make a sales call to an executive, I’d like to suggest you remember the following true story:
A few months ago, one of my salespeople, Daniel, had some car problems, so I offered to give him a ride to work. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to do a little one-on-one role-playing, I suggested we go over some appointment-setting …

Today, nobody seems to be around to answer their phones. You spend time cold calling, and all you get are voice-mail messages. You know people don’t bother calling back if they think it’s a sales call.

Because I kept running into this situation, I decided I had to leave a voice-mail message that would encourage prospects to call back. I found the best results came when I called people who are members of identifiable groups like the Chamber of Commerce. I could reference the group and gain some legitimacy for my …

There are quite a few pieces to the sales performance improvement puzzle - face-to-face selling skills, management style, coaching, account strategy, and so on. One piece that doesn’t get much attention is the sales process. The simplest definition of “sales process” is “a linked group of tasks that together create customer value.”

by Maxey
Some sales processes are more effective than others. In his book, Rethinking the Sales Force, Huthwaite founder Neil Rackham asks seven questions that can help you evaluate your organization’s sales process:

1.
Does your sales process reflect your customers’ …

Whether you sell face-to-face, by telephone, or in combination, there are eight basic steps in the process. By Helen Berman. Before the sales call, you will want to do your homework: review the account history, their market niche, sales and marketing goals, your current sales position and best initial strategy.

by Dan & Erin Sweeney
If you choose not to use each of the eight steps in a single sales call: you might break the stages of the sale into more than one call. For a new prospect, the opening and statement …

Here are eight steps to make your software sales calls more effective:
Before the Call
STEP 1. Rethink your role. A software sales call is not an opportunity to “pitch” – a monolog that attempts to convince a customer to buy. Instead, a software sales call is a rapport-building dialog between the right salesperson and the right customer. The subject matter of the call should be how your software can address key business issues – not the software and its features and functions.

STEP 2. Do your homework. You’ll never understand – or …