From the category archives:

Sales Negotiations

How to Screw Up a Nice Sale

May 20, 2009

A prior article set the scene. This one makes you privy to an explanation that most people in my company haven’t heard.
First, a quick review of the situation.
I’d been working on a million-dollar deal for about five months. Jim, a senior executive in our company (and my boss’s boss), slid into the driver’s seat on [...]

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Leave Your Rolex and Some of Your Perfection at Home

May 6, 2009

Are you ready for another contrarian tip about successful sales negotiations?
A prior article suggested that you introduce a slight stammer or hesitation into your conversation with a prospect.
This article tells you why.  If you agree with what you’re about to read, you’ll never want to look too good again.

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How to Sell Better by Not Selling Too Early

May 4, 2009

An earlier article suggested that you start each new sales relationship by withholding the information you have in order to bargain for the information you want.
This article will show you how to do that without irritating your prospect.
The strategy comes from Jim Camp, my mentor in sales negotiations. He’s the only person I know of [...]

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How to Negotiate an Evaluation Process that Meets Your Needs as Well as the Customer’s

May 1, 2009

A prior article noted the conflict you often face when the sales process you want to follow is at odds with the evaluation process your prospect wants to follow.
Have you had a prospect express mild interest in your offering and ask you to send information? You agree, and then when you call to [...]

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What to Do When Your Sales Process Conflicts with Your Prospect’s Decision Process

April 28, 2009

If you’ve been in sales awhile, you’ve learned to find your way through multiple sales cycles. You’ve developed a sense of process.
Your process is the series of steps you go through with your prospect to arrive at a successful transaction. It’s a mental map of the route you must navigate to arrive at a sale. [...]

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Selling and the Delusion of Control

April 20, 2009

How much control you do maintain over your prospects during a sales cycle?
If your answer is ‘a lot,’ I have a bone to pick with you. At best you’re deluded. At worst you’re a control freak.  In either case you’re probably working against your own best interests.
Let that harsh judgment forewarn you that you’re about [...]

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Learn to Embrace ‘No’

April 17, 2009

No may be the single most dreaded word in selling. But you can learn to appreciate it.
We’re learn from early childhood that no is a constraint on our ability to get or do what we want.

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How to Try Out New Sales Approaches with Low Risk

April 15, 2009

[This is the fifth in a series about Prospecting and Sales Negotiations. The prior post suggested some ideas that have helped me improve my prospecting. Some of them go against the grain of a lot of current thinking about good selling skills. This post suggests ways you can try out new sales approaches at relatively [...]

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Change Your Mindset, Improve Your Prospecting

April 13, 2009

[This is the fourth in a series of posts about prospecting and sales negotiations. The two prior posts gave you some ideas on behavior what to avoid when you're prospecting. This post gives you new ways to think about what you're doing. With these new perspectives you can eliminate some of the habits that irritate [...]

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More Behavior to Avoid When You’re Prospecting

April 10, 2009

[This is the third post in a series about prospecting and sales negotiations. The preceding post suggested that you can hurt yourself by "spilling the beans" too early. This means you should avoid telling your prospect too much about your product or company until she's told you about her problems, goals, wants or vision.]
Life, interrupted
How [...]

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