top three ways to become a sales truth

Honest selling is not an oxymoron! These two words are seldom used in the same sentence much less the same breath when talking about salespeople. Maybe it's time for a breath of fresh air and the intake starts with you. Salespeople are typically characterized as fast talking, self serving and greedy individuals. Outdated sales training methods continue to create these types of salespeople by teaching outdated methods of selling such as overcoming the objection. I.e. The first objection is never the real one. Overcome the prospect's objection a minimum of three times before you let them up for air. No wonder internet sales are booming! Maybe it's time to incorporate the most powerful sellig skill into weekly and one-on-one sales meetings: truth telling. This skill takes courage, introspection and personal accountability. Here are three ways to apply the powerful skill of truth telling.#1: Look in the mirror. Truth telling begins with you.Be honest with yourself. Quit blaming the company, your price points, the boss and the economy. Are you doing everything you can to succeed in tough times? It's not the most naturally gifted salesperson that wins business. It is the committed and disciplined salesperson that consistently wins business. Take the quiz below to check your commitment level to success.? I have read or listened to an average of one business/sales book a month for the past five years.
? I have actively sought out advice from a mentor, my boss or a colleague.
? I slow down long enough to figure out gaps in my performance and what to do about it. (I.e. I turn off all my electronics and focus.)
? I give 110% to my clients, job and my team.
? I am optimistic and proactively work on positive self-talk.
? I have written down my goals with specific action steps and deadlines.
? I have increased my sales activity to compensate for longer buy cycles.
? I attend a minimum of two educational workshops each year that helps me grow personally and professionally.Be honest and answer truthfully. Are you doing all of the above to become a true professional in sales?#2: Tell the truth to your prospects and clients. There is an old saying, "character not tested is no character at all." In tough times, character is tested. It can be tempting to sell something you know isn't of highest value for the client. This is particularly tempting if your prospect falls in the "doesn't know what he doesn't know" space. For example, a colleague recently referred me to a project, walking away from the sale because she discovered the prospect needed sales training more than her offering of team building. She could have easily sold a day of team building; however, she told the CEO the truth. She didn't close a sale that day. She did close a relationship and is now regarded as a trusted advisor.Truth telling is a powerful consultative selling skill because when you tell the truth you get the truth in return. For example, a salesperson is asked to put together a proposal, however, hasn't heard real 'pain.' Truth telling is a simple as this: "I'd love to put together a recommendation; however, I haven't heard enough of a reason for you to change/do something. What am I missing?" Or, "I get the feeling this issue is important, however, I am not sure it's landing in the top five priorities of things to get done at your organization. Should we back-up and really figure out if you need to address this challenge at this time?" Truth telling sets the foundation for honest dialogue. The prospect will agree and give you a no (saving you from writing one more practice proposal) or start selling you (and themselves) on why it's important to change, improve or switch.#3: Be honest - have you lost touch with customer needs? Is it the economy or has your product and service run its' course? Is it the economy or do you have lousy customer service? Is it the economy or is there another delivery mode your customers prefer when making a purchase. Zappos is a 1 billion dollar on-line shoe store company. They offer free shipping both ways and returns up to one year. Zappos figured out that customers, like me, hate the hassle of going to the post office to return items. They changed the game of delivery and it's paying big dividends. Jim Collins, author of, "How The Mighty Fall," shares the five stages that companies go through on their way to extinction. One of the stages is denial and creating cultures of denial. Here's the truth: you might be lousy at what you do and how you do it. You may be selling a product or service no one wants or needs anymore. Or you could be delivering services/product in a mode that is outdated and inconvenient. Get out of denial and seek the truth.Truth telling is a powerful consultative selling skill and one that will close business for your sales organization. Don't create a denial culture. Be honest and take a hard look at yourself, your sales process and your product and service offerings. It's time to close more business.

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what are the best books to sell online

Online book selling is one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways to start a business. All that is really necessary to start a basic book selling business is a computer with internet access, a few books of your own or consignment books from others. There are a number of venues where you can sell your books without paying a fee until your books are sold. At that time you will pay a small commission.If you become interested in this business you will first want to determine which books are the best to buy and sell. The last thing you want is to began buying books that do not sell. You will usually end up donating these unsold books to thrift stores and other institutions. While this is a gnerous act on your part and may give you a minor tax break donating books does not pay the bills.Start by becoming familiar with AddAll which is on online site that lists current asking prices and numbers of titles available. This is a good place to gather information prior to searching for books and an excellent resource to help you price your books. As you build knowledge of what sells best resist the temptation to buy current best seller fiction. Unless for some reason there is a shortage of this type they are only worth a couple of dollars. Out of print books can be a good choice. Out of print and some still printed books known as "how to books" that describe unique or specialized subjects are usually always a good choice and many can be purchased at garage and estate sales for under a dollar.Other categories would include fishing, auto racing, older civil war books, older sword and weapon books. Books on specialized trades such as blacksmiting, old word working tools, some sewing titles. Many college textbooks can be good sellers. You will need to do some research here though because colleges change the course books frequently. Auto, and motorcycle repair books will usually sell very quickly. Auto collectors books are a rich field.Another area which can be very lucrative are art books containing prints. There are people who specialize in buying these books and paying a good price for them. They then dismantle the books, mount the prints and sell the prints individually for a nice profit. This field will require some research. Check eBay often for the print category and take note of what is selling and then watch for books covering those artists.This article covers a very small selection of the best books to buy. Research is the secret to success in the online book business. This is a business where you can buy products for pennies that will resell for many dollars. However you should quickly learn what not to buy.Because so many books can be purchased for pennies this can be a lucrative business. Do your research, get out of that chair and hit a few book sales and why not read one or two of those things now and then?

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sharepoint service an effective business

SharePoint is an effective tool to enhance and streamline your business in so many different ways. If you use the SharePoint service you will be surprised of how the latest technology from Microsoft Office's SharePoint platform helps in running your businesses with lots of ease and discipline.This latest service from Microsoft Office's SharePoint platform is the ultimate collaboration tool that can improve your teamwork performance, develop your business insights.How SharePoint Service HelpsAs SharePoint can be customized you can use this service in lots of ways. Different business can be customized and deploy to match its own business needs. It improves the business process, communicatioand lots more. You can use your SharePoint services to:
(a) streamline your business processes
(b) increase employee collaboration
(c) manage workflow
(d) find and analyze data
(e) publish reports
(f) search for content, people or expertise in business applications
(g) create portals, blogs or wikis to share and maintain documents, task lists and information.SharePoint HistorySharePoint Team Services (STS) was the first version released at the same time as Office XP and available as part of Microsoft FrontPage. It runs on Windows 2000 server or Window XP.Later Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 was marketed as an upgrade to SharePoint Team Services which was a redesigned application. While SharePoint Team Services stored documents in ordinary file storage, keeping document metadata in a database its Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 version stores both the document and the metadata in a database, and supports basic document versioning for items in Document Libraries.The latest avatar of SharePoint is the WSS 3.0 released in 2007 WSS 3.0 do not support Windows 2000 server. This version supports more features used in Web 2.0 solutions like Blogs, Wikis and RSS feeds.How To Build A SharePoint PageA SharePoint page is built by combining the web parts into a web page, to be accessed using a browser. Any web editor supporting ASP.NET can be used for this purpose, even though Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer is the preferred editor. The extent of customization of the page depends on its design.Further Microsoft changed its name with version 4.0 to SharePoint Foundation 2010.Ways SharePoint service can assist:
(a) custom workflow development
(b) custom applications
(c) data cataloging
(d) branding
(e) MOSS development
(f) Microsoft.NET development
(g) technical staff and user training.What Else SharePoint Can DoEasy to operate SharePoint is an "out of the box" solution that integrates with Microsoft Office. It can also be customised to suit your specific business requirements and maximise its value.SharePoint Consultancy Service HelpThere are consulting services that help you with SharePoint. These services will help set up your business needs for maximum benefits.These services can help you with:
(a) business analysis
(b) planning and design
(c) custom content
(d) taxonomy
(e) navigation
(f) usability
(g) branding
(h) deployment
(i) training.

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handling objections a valuable skill to

As professional sales people, we have all encountered our fair share of objections from our customers for the product or service that we are selling. When I first started in sales I took these objections that customers put up personally, wondering what I had done wrong and why they did not buy from me, especially when I found out that they had bought a similar product from my competitors. That can destroy your self esteem, and if not controlled has a disastrous flow on effect which will effect your performance, customer interaction, and your pay check.Have you encountered a similar situation? Not good is it?So why do customers raise objections, even after you as a professional sales persohas covered all the ground and created rapport?Customers object for many and varied reasons and the most common of these is affordability! Yes affordability. I know that sounds crazy, but is it? Have a look at your self, and analyze why you put up objections when you have gone into a store to buy an item, and the sales person has been great, yet you have taken an out put up an objection and then told the sales person "Hey I will think about it, and get back to you" and guess what you like most customers never do. So why did you do that?Your answer to this self analysis question will provide valuable information to assist you in handling objections from your customer and in particular the fatal words "I will think about it" the sale killer. Think about how often you as a customer have used these exact same words, and then look at how often your customers have used those words on you. Interesting isn't it?Yes objections are frustrating, especially when you desperately need the sale to make target. Objections are not the end of the world or for that matter the sale, in fact superb sales people welcome and are prepared for objections, it comes with the territory of sales. So rather than getting hot under the collar when you as a sales person feel your customer is about to raise an objection welcome it by being prepared, preparation comes with looking at all possible scenarios and then rehearsing how you will handle them. Remember Armies rehearse for battle; they just don't jump in and go to war. The majority of a soldier's military life is spent training and rehearsing for WAR. As a professional sales person how much time do you spend training and rehearsing to sharpen your selling skills one of which is handling objections?I find objections healthy and very informing as it allows me to gauge just how well my customer is listening and reviewing what I am proposing. Rather than getting defensive I use their objections to further build my credibility.It is not the scope of this article to teach you how to master the art of handling objections, so to help you along in turning objections into sales here are some simple pointers, which you can expand on.1. Openly acknowledge the customers concerns,2. Show empathy, establish the core of why the objection has been raised3. Ask Questions, strategically tuning your questions to be even more specific so that you can unearth the underlying reason. Often the customer themselves may not know why they have raised an objection it could be as innocuous as listening to a friend and thought well that worked may be it will work here as well.4. Appreciate your response. Be concise (try not to be verbose and waffle), Be Specific, customize your response to meet the customers needs, and ask more questions.5. Never take objections personally; the customer could be afraid of making the commitment.

Original :: handling objections a valuable skill to

make your customer feel comfortable ask

How often have you as a customer been asked for feed back during the sale process? As a sales person how often have you asked your customer for feed back during the sale?This is an important skill that you have to learn and keep honed, just doing it now and then will give you a now and then kind of income! Superb high producing sales persons ask their customers for feed back right through the sales process and before they move on to another point, this continual checking in effect keeps you focused on your customers needs and the customer focused on you and your proposal. Developing this skill allows a sales person to accurately gauge where they stand in meeting a customers needs, and howwell they are progressing, while at the same time provides the information that you require to navigate successfully in the sales process making adjustments seamlessly as you proceed.This skill takes away the assumptions that most sales people make when their customer is silent, by wrongly assuming that their customer is still focused, active, and interested in what they are proposing, this could be furthest from the truth as the customer may have zoned out and is in fact playing a round of golf in his mind instead of listening to your sales pitch!C'mon haven't you done something similar your self when you have been the customer? Actively seeking and asking for customer feed back keeps you in control and on track to achieve your objective. Checking also allows you the sales person to identify any mistakes that you may be inadvertently doing, it allows you to see opportunities, for a close, or obstacles that you may have to remove. Most importantly your customer feed back gives you an opportunity to refine your message to suit the particular customer making you confident to close the sale.Each time you ask a question or respond to an objection, check for feed back so you can gauge your customers reaction, if the customer understands and agrees, with your checking question it will save valuable time, as you will avoid going over unnecessary ground, should your feed back show that the customer is still unsure or worse confused it will allow you to seamlessly back track, make adjustments, and then move forwards again.This important skill is one that sales people resist the most. Why? In my years as a trainer sales people resist this skill as they fear it may be too risky and as a result jeopardize their objective, Or they believe that this skill makes them appear far to pushy, or manipulative, (this skill is neither) so they fail to learn, develop and keep this skill honed, as they have stumbled on and made sales with out utilizing this particular skill to it's fullest. Imagine how many more sales you would make form this one customer if you had taken the time to learn this skill and then rehearsed it honing it to perfection.So what are checking questions? Simply stated checking questions are open ended questions such as "would you agree...?" "What are the points....?" So questions that are open ended are checking questions and not leading questions, leading questions do just that lead the customer to make an answer in other words it forces the customer to say yes or no.

Original :: make your customer feel comfortable ask

what are the worst books to sell online

Any successful marketer will tell you that two of the most important tenants of a successful business are "Buy Low Sell High" and make sure that you only inventory product that is in demand and will resell fairly quickly. In the online book business the first is easy because you can usually purchase books any day of the week. There are many sources such as library book sales, estate sales, garage sales, thrift stores and others. You can bring home a trunk load of books many times for a dollar or less each.This benefit of the first tenant can be a problem in the building of inventory. Because books can be purchased so cheaply there is always the danger of buying stock that does not sell. Wen you do this you become a book collector instead of a book seller. This is fine if collecting is your goal. However to pay the bills those books will need to be sold. Book selling is a field where you need to do your research in order to be successful. Lets consider some books that are questionable at best as salable inventory.Current biographies about movie stars and current political figures are usually a bad prospect. Current fiction is another bad choice. These usually fall out of favor quickly and many titles now are being published in electronic form making the printed versions less popular. Literature can be very difficult unless you are knowledgeable in the field.Remember that old does not automatically mean valuable. While there are gems in those older books many while interesting simply because of their age just do not sell. While text books can be a very good choice you need to be careful here. Many sociology and political science texts can flood the market and make them useless for resale.Study guides and computer books lose their value quickly. While many how to books can be good choices computer books about programs that are outdated are usually worthless. Contrary to what many might believe many of the Time-Life type books will not sell. Readers digest and most National Geographic titles along with many sports and coffee table books usually will just clutter up your inventory. As with anything though there are exceptions to the rule. Again this is why research will make or break an online book business.Most cookbooks and baking books are usually not good choices. But if you were to specialize in this field and keep up to date on what is in demand many of these could be good choices. Romance novels and most paper backs will be poor choices. There are others that should be avoided but only research and experience will give you the knowledge needed to succeed in this exciting field. Remember that even if you don't succeed in finding a treasure while searching, every hunt is like searching for gold and you never know when you will hit the "mother lode".

Original :: what are the worst books to sell online

art of negotiation knowing when and what

As a professional sales person how good are you at negotiating? The answer lies in the size of your pay check, so don't kid your self and say you are great at negotiating if your pay check is consistently small, by small I mean less than $250,000.00 per annum! I personally would not be happy with a pay check of that size, so I would make it my business to learn this skill and hone my negotiating skill into an art form.Professional sales people must understand this simple truth: Selling and Negotiating are totally separate phases of the selling process, most sales people are poor to average negotiators, and believe that negotiating is all about reducing the price to finally achieve a sale,little wonder then that the customer expects this and tries to squeeze the last ounce out of the sale person that they are dealing with and usually are still not satisfied. Have you as a sales person experienced this?You definitely would have, as today's informed and savvy customer is continually bombarded both electronically and by the media and friends to never pay list price for any thing and in fact to ask the sales person these Fatal questions "What is your best price?" or "I have been offered this price from your competitor down the road, can you better it?" You may be asking at this point yeah I have so why have you called it a Fatal Question? Fair question and here is my answer, to a professional sales person this question is fatal, as the customer is taking control of the sales process putting the sales person into a price point corner, either way the sales person stands to lose once they allow themselves to be dragged into this quag mire, if they make the sale their commission is affected dramatically so a lower pay check and if they lose the sale their pay check and their self esteem is damaged. Lose- Lose, so can you now appreciate how important the skill of negotiating is?Here is another question, has a customer said this to you "Just tell me what the price is?" What is the customer doing? Do you know? If you do, do you know how to neutralize it? Keeping the customer happy and involved?How often has this happened to you? and how have you handled this situation? Have you gone straight into giving the customer the price and then had the customer say "Thanks I will think about iy and get back to you" Yup it has happened right?Negotiating is an art that right an ART, something that superb sales persons do extremely well, in fact none of my customers have ever paid less than the price I have asked for! Can you say the same?Before you enter the negotiating phase you must do so after you have answered these two questions, 1. Do I know the customers needs? 2. Does the customer appreciate what is on the table? If the answer to either of the questions is no, you are not ready to negotiate, slow down, regain control and go again. If the answer is yes, you are ready to start the negotiating phase. Let us just go back a step and see how we would handle a customer that is insistent and wants to know the price, the easiest way that I have found to handle this situation is to go along staying in control for example "Yes, customer, we can discuss price, could I ask a few questions to get the details I need to assist you better?" At this point the customer may still refuse to give you information that you require average sales people succumb at this point and give them the price, (either specific or ballpark) this practice is risky as you have now lost control, getting control back from this position is difficult and you will now get squeezed by your customer, resulting in a smaller pay check for you.If the customer is insistent, work to get below the surface to the customers specific need with out establishing the need. Why? Knowing the need allows you several ways to meet your objective whereas a Demand is narrow leaving you with few if any choices to satisfy. Selling on price is damaging for your pay check and your companies long term viability, companies need to make a profit to survive, so don't give it away freely!Negotiation is a tool that you use to preserve your price and terms. I learn't this when I went into our local Mercedes Benz dealer ship lately to purchase the new Mercedes SLS Gull wing I asked the sales person for the best price without allowing him the time to get into the sales process, he was a superb sales person and turned my question on price around seamlessly getting me to give him the reason "needs" at no time did he ask me to make an offer and when price was eventually discussed it was when he was ready for the negotiating phase and I was made to feel that the price was minor in comparison to what was on the table. I paid full price that is the art of negotiating by a superb sales person, little wonder he is the highest paid and holds the number one position for Mercedes Benz sales in Australasia.You can as well once you have mastered the art of negotiating.

Original :: art of negotiation knowing when and what

art of negotiation get to the need

Under every demand the customer puts forward there is a need, as a sales professional it is your task to unearth that need, for with out identifying the need, how are you going to meet your objective?As a professional sales person the last thing you want to hear your customer say to you is "I need to think about it and will get back to you" the customer seldom if ever will get back to you and when you follow up they will either not take your call or tell you that they have purchased else where!The main reason why a customer will not buy from you is because you have failed to identify and then satisfy their needs, instead you have become distracted by their demands and fear of losing the sle and conceded to their demand and presented price. At this point you are sliding away from the sale quicker than a land slip; basically you could liken your self to a motor vehicle spinning its wheels with no forward traction, not a good position to be in as a sales person, is it?Well I can hear you say OK this is all well and good but I have made sales even when I have presented price. Good for you. This event is rare. If you want to get a bigger pay check on a consistent basis you must get to and understand the customers' needs, not just give it a cursory thought. Make sure you have identified the need of your customer and not made an assumption as to what you have interpreted the need to be, you achieve this by getting the customer to tell you, by negotiating it from them.Tip: There is only one way to satisfy a demand. There are multiple ways to satisfy a need. There it is a demand does not give you room to move needs on the other hand give you several opportunities to work on, so get to the core need.When a customer enters your shop or yard to purchase, they are on the defensive, it is your task to make them relax and start talking about their needs and what specifically they are wanting solved, occasionally you may have a customer that becomes adversarial as this is the defense mechanism that they have taught themselves and it has worked in the past getting them what they want. An adversarial customer is trying to intimidate so they can take control, and usually this works when they are dealing with average sales persons, when they come up against a superb sales person this adversarial customer becomes putty and controllable in the hands of a superb sales person why? As superb sales persons remain consultative even with an adversarial customer during the negotiating phase, they never become adversarial, and eventually the adversarial negotiator runs out of puff and amenable when they realize that the adversarial method is not going to work for them in this instance.Tip: You do not have to be adversarial to be in and stay in control.

Original :: art of negotiation get to the need

art of negotiation do not give trade

Tip: Negotiation is all about trading not giving.This is where average sales people fail, as during this phase they get consumed with closing the sale so that they can chalk another sale up, only to have it fall over, and the excuse they use is "Oh the buyer had buyers remorse..." Oh please, these days there is an excuse for an excuse, c'mon be honest with your self you not the buyer failed as you failed to understand the need and assumed resulting in giving away more than you needed in other words you conceded to the customer and lost control, at this point the customer is left wondering "This sounds too good to be true... and if it does then what is the catch? Am I missing something? AmI being conned?" All this because you as the sales person conceded more than you had to losing control and the sale as a result.Think back to your own experiences as a customer where the sales person has conceded quickly, what have been your thought patterns? Have you gone through and bought from the sales person that has just conceded, or have you had similar thoughts as the customer described in the paragraph above? This is the problem with conceding (giving), rather than trading, when you trade the customer feels that they are getting some value for the concession that they have made, rather than feeling that this is too good to be true they feel rewarded, weird but that is how people think and react.With current affairs and news programs continually portraying sales people as the devil the buying public is wary and skeptical.Try this, go out and give a stranger some help with out any catches, or if you would prefer try this on your own close friends or family, the first question that will lave their lips when you do an act of kindness or generosity is "Why me? What have I done?" or "What is the catch" now if your own friends and family react like that what hope is there for a complete stranger to react any differently? See the problem, so do not give to quickly or more than you need to achieve your objective.Tip: Keep track of what you have given, and only give one at a time.By slowing down it allows you to control the negotiating process and take your customer to the objective in a delighted frame rather than in a questioning frame of mind.

Original :: art of negotiation do not give trade

art of negotiation the power of silence

We all love talking, and often we talk just for the sake of talking so that we can hear our own voices, perhaps it is insecurity built in to us Humans, in any case the urge to talk more than we listen is endemic with in our specie, this constant noise prevents us from picking up on opportunities that fleet by us.As professional sales people you have to master the skill of knowing when to "SHUT UP. Do you know when to shut up? In professional selling we call that knowing when to stop selling! That is shut up and keeps quiet.Try this test, next time you are in a meeting, sales process, or just out with friends, after you have said your piece just shut up, resist the urge to say something moe. I guarantee that you will find this task immensely difficult to do! As the pause lengthens the urge to speak will grow making resisting this urge to talk very difficult indeed, in fact one of the group will just have to say something, to break the silence. Go on try it and find out how challenging this test is.So how does this help in the negotiating process? It makes the negotiating so much easier, you as the professional sales person has stated your piece, be it price or product, now be silent. It does not matter how long you have to be silent, it may feel like an eternity, be assured you will be amazed to find out that it probably is only a few seconds, a minute perhaps, before some one will speak.Tip: The first to speak is usually the first to concede.The first to speak is the first to concede so make sure it is not you that speaks first but your customer, as this will ensure your objective is achieved. This is one occasion where you do not ask for feed back that phase is now over, this is the final game, the bit that fattens your pay check. If you check to see if the price is ok you have been the first to speak and as a result you have weakened your position.IT TAKES STRENGTH TO KNOW WHEN TO SHUT UP AND BE SILENT.The old clich?d saying silence is golden stands true for professional sales people. Learn the skill of knowing when to keep silent in the sales process and maintain this silence for what ever length of time is required and you will reap the benefits.

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