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Sales Coaches
Cold call, warm call, hot call…what is it? Go with the easy ones first
Outreach occurs on an ominous note because we collapse outreach with cold calls…which many salespeople fear and despise…and consequently, aren’t very good at…so the cycle never gets broken and the perspective continues.
If you see the relevance and value of outreach but don’t have much experience with it, the fear and resistance are understandable. So, let’s start with the easy stuff…hot and warm calls.
Hot calls are those customers who are actively looking, and you happened to connect wit…
Why wait?
As traffic begins to slow in both retail and trade showrooms and we look to satisfy our commitment to making goal NO MATTER WHAT…we find that relying solely on the door is not a good strategy for achievement.
Relying on the door is a waiting game. And it puts all the eggs in one basket… and it’s not a sturdy basket. It may seem easier to just wait and see what happens, right? But what if the traffic is insufficient to make your goal at your current performance levels? Then what? Can you affo…
Organized for Appointments
The Greek poet Archilochus said: “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training”. The same is true for our level of structure and organization.
If we are really intending to manage our actions in time and achieve our targeted outcomes by successfully making and executing appointments, we need to be structured to do that.
And that means to be organized by having appointments IN YOUR CALENDAR as one-hour placeholders, using the repeat function on yo…
Intended Outcomes
My program, “Sell it or Schedule it”™, is called that because the ONLY outcomes of a selling interaction is to close the sale or to arrange another contact time…in order to close the sale. To either write it up today because the customer is far enough along in their buying process to be able to confidently decide…or they aren’t! In the case of the latter, an appointment will ‘forward’ or ‘advance’ the sale so that you can close it at the next contact.
Anything else isn’t an outcome, but a step …
April Showers Bring May Flowers
As lead times remain long and product pricing and freight continue to rise, we are faced with the question of timing. It’s likely that home furnishings (and I speak to fine quality products here) will never be more affordable than they are right now. And right now is all we have. Now is the time to take action and make decisions.
That thinking needs to start with the sales professional. Waiting favors no one. A client/customer who believes that waiting until supply chain challenges lessen or…
The Start of a New Quarter
The beauty of quarters is that they are measurable and manageable components of time that allow for a bit more breathing room than months alone allow.
As sales professionals, we are challenged to make goal every month and to make goal every quarter. However, it doesn’t always work that smoothly…with significant goals, you might miss goal one month, go a bit over the next month, and look to square up the quarter in the third month…which is why I like quarterly goals so much.
Each quarter t…
Equals (Product) Solution
If you are still reading this series, you have come to the summary of addition: Problem plus Priorities plus Process equals Solution.
The product solution that you create by asking questions in these three areas and combining the answers will produce a solution that will compel the customer to take action…now.
Presenting a solution that captures the essence of what matters most to the customer standing in front of you requires focus, attention, patience, and persistence. And the satisfacti…
Process…plus….
Of the three key points, this one is most critical to know in order to direct the interaction to an outcome today – and the only outcomes that count are a sale or an appointment.
Every buyer is somewhere in their buying decision. Where they are and what they have done and what remains to be done will impact what they CAN do today.
Surprisingly, this is the area least explored by most salespeople or considered critical in what outcome can be achieved today. And I assert that not knowing th…
Priorities…plus….
As we did in the first blog of this series (Problems….), we will focus on one element. One element that when added to the others creates something magical.
Priorities are those things that matter most. And there aren’t a lot of them, which is what makes them priorities.
When working with a designer or with a retail customer, ask what the priorities of the project/product are…and limit them to THREE.
Ask: “What are the three most important elements to you?” Then listen and take no…
Problem…plus….
In this series, I am going to share a perspective with you that will have a lasting impact. These three initial points added together create something…something worth sticking around for.
When people have a home furnishings problem, they seek a solution with a designer or with a retail showroom. They come with a problem to be solved or a vision to be realized – or both. It is up to the professional service provider to find out what that is and to satisfy it.
To put this into place,…
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