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July/August 2008
Note: The July/August issue of Selling Power has been mailed to all subscribers. The magazine is available on 2,200 newsstands nationwide (check at your local Barnes & Noble store).
You can also order your single copy online now, or get your personal subscription today.
Editorial
Gerhard Gschwandtner
Abstract:
In essence, there are three levels of sales performance. The first is based on a simple formula: pitch and pray. Once salespeople learn how to present the value of their solution, they feel confident and enthusiastic about pitching new customers over and over. What these salespeople don’t know is how much more they could sell if they replaced their pitch with a meaningful dialogue.”…read more
Managers’ Forum
Henry Canaday
Abstract:
Sales managers discuss the challenges of keeping salespeople consistently productive and proficient and making time for coaching and maintaining customer relationships. Successful sales leaders offer tips on time management, training, and motivating the team.
Manage Your Sales Team
Geoffrey James
Abstract:
Ascent Healthcare Solutions is an independent reprocessor of medical devices for hospitals and healthcare providers. Working within FDA guidelines, Ascent takes devices that the original medical manufacturers have labeled “single use” and cleans, function-tests, and sterilizes them, and then sells them back to the hospitals at about half of what they would pay for a brand-new device. Since Ascent maintained high standards and offered hospitals a money-saving value proposition, company executives assumed that selling the firm’s services would be easy. It wasn’t.
To better understand where its sales process faltered, Ascent called on Market-Partners, which helped the reprocessing company develop a successful and consultative sales model that allowed it to better fill the needs of its market.
Selling Essentials
Henry Canaday
Abstract:
Diversity. It’s a catchall phrase that can have a variety of meanings. Based on decades of focus on bringing people of different backgrounds, cultures, and ethnic groups into the mainstream of American business, diversity has come to represent a true melting pot of American enterprise. Today, diversity in a sales force can have not only a positive impact on a company’s overall image and reach into the market, but also a positive effect on bottom-line business. But achieving true diversity goes deeper than simply hiring individuals from various ethnic groups. In this article, successful sales execs share what they’ve learned about the challenges – and the ultimate rewards – of developing and leading a diverse team.
Malcolm Rees and Steve Diamond
Abstract:
In this case study, Malcolm Rees and Steve Diamond trace the methods, patterns, and approaches to creating a highly functioning and successful sales force at a major company operating around the globe.
Voicemails That Get Callbacks • Analyze Your Sales Accounts • Paul D’Souza: Vice president of sales, Raw Sugar • Earnings Based on Closings • It’s What You Know • Keeping Spirits High • ABCs of Prospecting • Order Add-Ons • Sounds Like a Plan • Nice Work • Eliminate Sales Pressure • Negotiate Like a Pro • Michael Norton: President, Zig Ziglar Corp. and Founder, CanDoGo • The Art of the Compliment
Dr. William D. Brown
Abstract:
Manipulation is a psychological defense designed to manage and control another person or situation for one’s own purposes or profit. Healthy sales personalities avoid being influenced by such behavior by developing their persuasive skills. The next time you face the dreaded task of calling on a manipulative client, consider using the techniques outlined in this article to close the sale and finish with your self-esteem intact.
Train Your Sales Team
Geoffrey James
Abstract:
Most sales are lost through the failure to prospect than through the failure to do any other step. The reason is simple: without prospects, there is no opportunity to sell. Since prospecting is so important to sales success, here is a simple four-step program for quickly and efficiently creating a strong list of prospects.
Cover Story
Kim Wright Wiley
Abstract:
It’s a big secret in the world of high achievement: getting what you want sometimes leads to “Supernova Burnout,” a term that executive coach, management consultant, and author Steven Berglas, PhD, coined to describe a disorder that afflicts successful people who find that their vocation is no longer psychologically rewarding. It’s a special kind of depression that strikes when you least expect it, the kind of pain that can come on the heels of a major success, the low that often follows the high. Read on to find out how you can keep from hitting bottom when you finally reach the top.
Features
Henry Canaday
Abstract:
When top management decides on a partnering approach with customers and prospects, sales managers may find themselves asking one simple question: “Now how am I going to implement this new strategy?” Granted, the partnership model can be effective over the long haul, but nothing is simple and there are rules to follow. Since the effects on sales can be massive and complex, managers and reps will have to make major adjustments throughout the chain of events that result in closed deals. In this article, Steve Grossman, leader of sales consulting at Mercer Human Resources, and other successful sales executives discuss types of partnerships and offer insights on how to manage within one.
Geoffrey James
Abstract:
The basic nature of the business-to-business customer relationship has been changing rapidly. Today’s customers want to drive the relationship, according to Selling Power publisher Gerhard Gschwandtner. “What works today is what might be called ‘cocreation,’ in which sellers and buyers work together to find solutions.” Unfortunately, CRM as currently defined provides little or no support for cocreation efforts. What’s needed, in addition to CRM, is an entirely new set of tools and an entirely new way of thinking about how sales teams should use technology.
FedEx uses cutting-edge technology to deliver the goods
New Solutions For Managers
Kim Wright Wiley
Abstract:
Top performance consultant and author Mark Cook analyzed the techniques of the most successful Fortune 500 leaders and realized that they all have one thing in common. Well, actually eight things. At a performance tier where great numbers are expected year after year, these Sales Blazers manage to keep improving on their stellar performances, meeting high quotas and shattering records along the way. Cook has isolated eight strategies these supersuccessful salespeople all employ. Read on to find out what Cook’s Sales Blazers already know.
Also: Fleet • Incentives • Leads • Sales 2.0 Tools
Ideas That Pay
Henry Canaday
Abstract:
A mutual fund group of a full-service global banking and securities firm wholesaled through financial service advisors across the United States. Sales reps worked with the advisors to build the relationships that would prompt the advisors to recommend the firm’s mutual fund products. But many of these contacts were chiefly reactive. “They talked to the people they knew, and the money came in,” explains Jason Brown, associate principal of ZS Associates. The firm thought it could do better. ZS was called in to look for a better way of building and maintaining these crucial relationships. Read this article to learn more about the profitable solution prescribed by ZS Associates.
Advertising Index
Thoughts To Sell By
Forward this posting to anyone else you think could benefit from boosting their selling power.
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