Babe Ruth on Failures

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” – Babe Ruth. We can easily get discouraged by sales we fail to close, but each of these can serve as a reason to quit or an opportunity to close the next sale. Which will you choose? Will you allow strikes to get you down and…

Knowledge and Success

“If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?” – Thomas Jefferson Our third president’s witty remark speaks to a truth important for the sale professional: knowledge can lead to happiness.  How so?  When we put our knowledge about effective salesmanship into action, we take a step closer to achieving success, and success is one…

Life is Pain, Highness

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” So says the Dread Pirate Roberts in the classic film, The Princess Bride. His line illustrates the stereotype of sales people as deceitful opportunists who are not to be trusted. Like pirates. What can you do as a sales leader or sales professional to…

Building Trust

In an interview with Kristi Hedges, Andrea Howe suggests one way to get beyond the fear of saying the wrong thing and, instead, build trust: Getting curious is a great antidote for high self-orientation, as it requires you to get away from yourself and into the other person’s world. If you can find ways to…

Mother’s Day Sales Advice

On this Mother’s Day, remember to treat your prospects as you would your mother.  You don’t try to “sell” your mother, and you don’t just try to find her the best deal; instead, when you’re out shopping with your mother or for your mother, you do your best to find the product or service that…

Being Sold vs. Being Helped

Mike Myatt highlights the important difference: Engage me, communicate with me, add value to my business, solve my problems, create opportunity for me, educate me, inform me, but don’t try and sell me – it won’t work. An attempt to sell me insults my intelligence and wastes my time. Think about it; do you like to be sold? News…