If you have not had the opportunity to see The Matrix, you should go rent it and watch it a few times. Besides being just another sci-fi flick, The Matrix has a deeper meaning that can be directly applied to sales. I had a Matrix moment at work today. Photo: ThomasThomas Take the Red Pill. Do you believe you are a better than average sales person? Have you just been waiting for that moment to present itself to be a superstar? Stop waiting. Anyone that tells you that 'opportunity knocks' is lying to you. Opportunity comes to the person who makes the effort to be better. No MBA program is going to knock on your door, you need to apply and attend. Chances are no major revenue event is going to drop on your desk, you need to look for it. Some people call it drinking the koolaid, but regardless you should do it. Once you buy in that you can be better and start behaving like a rockstar sales professional, the results will come. Sometimes in weeks sometimes in a few months but if you stay consistent taking the Red Pill will open your eyes to a world of possibilities you ...

Finding new customers every month is just the name of the game in sales. One of the best ways to go about this is understanding trigger events and how they apply to your industry. Trigger events are specific events in a company that are key drivers for buying or not buying products and services. By asking the right questions you should know fairly quickly if you have an opportunity or not. Now getting a sale is another story but at least you know that if a company meets specific criteria then they are worth spending some quality time with. photo credit: pfala Consider that salespeople require answers to these fundamental questions: How am I going to find my next customer? How can I differentiate prospects from suspects? Can I avoid the uncertainty and inefficiency of cold calling? How can I determine my customer’s needs and wants without assuming? How can I know if my customer is ready to buy? How can I get to presentation and closing faster? Salesopedia has a good article that explains this a bet ...

Although having a successful business sounds great, it is not for everyone. Some people lack the necessary traits to run their own business. You don’t have to be particularly smart to have your own business, but you need certain other qualities. Following is a list of the 7 traits of success that most business owners possess. photo credit: shlomp-a-plompa 1. Motivation. You have to be motivated to be successful. Most successful individuals are driven to succeed and make money. They feel a need to do more and become better. 2. Competitive Nature. Almost all successful entrepreneurs are competitive. They want to be among the biggest, best, and most successful. Being just average is not good enough. 3. Self starter. There is no one standing over you with a whip when you have your own business. You have to work long hard hours, particularly when you are just starting out. Successful business owners know what has to be done and they do it, no matter how long it takes. 4. Decisive. Most entrepreneurs will quickly analyze a situation, decide on a course of action, and get to work. They don’t have the time or patience to research a situation for weeks before making a decision. 5. Optimistic. Most successful business owners ...

When you have a serious target to hit you need to use some serious sales techniques. My strategies are designed to be low cost and high return methods. photo credit: guiguis 1) Qualify - they qualify again - so if you want to hit your targets make sure you qualify the price straight away - no point in going in to sell a $100,000 solution to a client with a $1,000 budget. 2) Find out what they want - don't tell them what what you want to sell. The most frequent mistake is where a salesman is selling a system and talking about benefits that mean nothing to the prospect. If you find out what pushes their buttons before you start then you can tailor your presentation to exactly that. As an example if you are selling case management and that includes some time billing system but the client is not interested in time recoding at all then there is no point in focussing on it. If you are selling a system that includes an accounts function but you are presenting to someone that does not understand accounts then don't show that part. 3) Be professional - your competitors are good, you are ...

  As important and essential is the implementation and use of Six Sigma to the livelihood of any business organization, the certification process for an individual to become Six Sigma qualified is rather obscure. photo credit: gothick_matt Basically, there is no formal list or specific amounts of training and knowledge that one must have in order to obtain the various levels of technical and organizational expertise. However, there are three specific certification levels to Six Sigma leaders: Green belts, Black Belts and Master Black Belts. Green Belts Green Belts are proficiency team leaders that are capable of organizing and instructing six sigma teams and can easily manage projects from conception and beyond. Green Belt training is usually composed of a week of classroom training, which is often held in tandem with a company's current six sigma projects. Training usually covers different facilitation techniques, project and quality management tools, quality control, problem solving, and data analysis. Black Belts People who make excellent Black Belts are hi-tech individuals with advanced aptitudes for statistics and mathematics and are often role models for their colleagues. They should already be engaged in their company's strategic organizational overhaul including business development processes. Black Belt candidates usually have varied backgrounds and are usually not formally ...

Being a better salesperson is more than learning new skills and techniques. Here are my top ten ways to become a better salesperson. 1. Smile and Walk Tall Changing your physiology is a great way to feel better about everything going around you. I want you to try an experiment. I want you to think and act as if you are totally depressed. Come on do this with me. Stand up and act like you're totally depressed. Notice how you are standing. Your shoulders are slumped. Your head is down. Your face is sad and your breathing is shallow. Feels pretty awful doesn't it? Photo credit: aloshbennett Okay, Now I want you to imagine a time when you felt on top of the world, when everything was going your way, you couldn't lose. How are you standing? Your shoulders are back, head is up, your breathing is deep and you've got a big smile on your face. Feel the difference? 2. Surround Yourself With People Who Support You One of the most important steps you can take in your life is to build relationships with people who genuinely care about you and will support you as you go through life. I'm talking about people who will love you during hard ...

Does that title sound like a gimmick? It’s not. It’s about the numbers. If you truly want to double your sales, you simply need to double a key aspect of your sales performance, asserts Stephan Schiffman, sales trainer and prolific author, in his newest book, Sales Essentials (Adams Media, 2008). His advice is rooted in the theory that when you measure and focus on a certain area, you’ll see improvement in that area. Here, he says, are five ways you can double your sales:

I come from a high-tech background and though that industry is enormous, finding qualified leads are still difficult. There are older industries out there that are much larger and the lead pools are just as hard to swim through. From telecommunications to construction and even networking equipment. If you are a sales professional in any of these areas you need a qualified list of growing companies that have some money to spend on your products. This brings me to Sales Leads Inc. who has been specializing in providing businesses leads in these areas and more since 1959. SALES LEADS, Inc. was founded by John Beecher and his wife, LaVerne, in their Westport , Connecticut home office in 1959. What started out as a few typewritten pages covering the New York City metropolitan area has mushroomed to over 400 leads per month for the continental U.S. and Canada delivered via the Internet as well as traditional first class mail. The company's offices moved to Palm Beach County , Florida in 1977 and are now located in Lake Park , Florida , a suburb of West Palm Beach . About Sales Leads' 45+ years in business, Michael Beecher says, "the reason for our longevity and ...

It's Q1 and if you're in sales you are starting with a clean slate. Well unless you were that bad in 2007 then you need to make up for a bad Q4. For most of us though January is a great time of the year and when all the stress for the year comes back to a mild simmer. Sales executives take the first couple of weeks to put together the annual plans for the group and you should be trying to close out all the opportunities that slipped from December. Start Selling When all is said and done you really should be putting together a sales plan for yourself. Getting self motivated is a whole lot better than waiting for your manager to get all over your ass for not hitting you goals. Most of your buddies in the sales teams will be taking it easy for the first couple of weeks. Making a few calls and 'getting ready' for the year. That's hogwash. Start sending out the emails, making the calls and lining up your target accounts for the next year. What prospects will you hold yourself to closing in the next 12 months? What needs to be done ...

It's the comment heard more often than not in sales. "I need more leads." is how most sales people excuse the lack of deals they have or the the explanation for what they need to grow their territories even more. Marketing can run all the campaings they want and you can spend hours searching the web for companies that have been missed by them, or you can do what I have done and sign up for a free email newsletter that send new leads right to your inbox. ProspectsDaily is a site anyone in sales should take a look at along with their parent site JustSell, they seem to have what every sales person needs. sales tips, motivation and additional leads. I was passed along the link several months back by a manager that I keep in contact with and immediately signed up for the newsletters they offer. Since BACN is the new industry term for email you want - But not right now, this falls with in that realm. Loaded with news and industry contacts, this site can give you a fresh set of leads that you would not normally find in LinkedIn or Hoovers. Where do you get the news reported on ...