Sales Insight
Selling printing, services, and managing sales
Success begets success
I am certain that you all have had those days (or perhaps even WEEKS) where you can’t get anyone on the phone and those you do get either hang up, put you off, or tell you to call someone else. It is a difficult stretch to go through and especially difficult when it happens day after day, week after week. 28 years in Sales has given me many such stretches. That’s what makes the good ...... Read More
Comments (9)Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!
I am SO sick of hearing the word "Surviving" and all of its cousins (survive, survivability, etc) when it comes to the economy. All of the upcoming conferences for our industry are on surviving and it is making me NUTS. What a self-fulfilling prophesy that is. Let me give you an example. I got a call last week from one of the PIA Affiliates. They want me to write 3000 words for their upcoming ma ...... Read More
Comments (0)Sales sucks. I quit.
This is a familiar story: "I really had no business succeeding. In fact, it’s a minor miracle. I knew nothing about sales. When I looked around the office, I saw success everywhere but in the mirror. It was a very difficult time for me. Every morning I’d come in to the office and try to pysch myself up for the day. Every night I’d leave the office defeated. I’d think, ...... Read More
Comments (3)The best remedy for a bad day
No matter what kind of day I have, if I have made a solid effort to drive new business, I’m in a good place. It doesn’t matter if I sell nothing in the process, it is the simple fact that I got in a bunch of calls. Sometimes I bring some phone numbers with me and call from the road (not my first choice) just to get in a few extras. While I would rather have a few "yes’s" to ba ...... Read More
Comments (1)Scary times
I have long known that Fear is a wonderful motivator. What’s the line in the movie, “The Hunt for Red October”: ‘When Cortes landed in the New World, he burned the ships. As a result, his men were well motivated.” (Oh, and btw, the only way to read that last line is with Sean Connery’s accent). As a sales rep coming out of college, I was well motivated b ...... Read More
Comments (0)How's business?
I have had an interesting few weeks of conversations with prospects and customers. In particular, the answer to the question, "How’s business?" has generated some curious reaction. For the most part, here is what I can report: • Responses are equally divided into three categories: A. "We are actually very busy!" B. "We are as dead as disco!" C. "Customers are delaying their or ...... Read More
Comments (1)One of the Best Sales Tips You’ll Ever Get
My older brother Andy is a Sales God. He is truly amazing, always has been. What’s more, he is an even better manager. How many people can you say THAT about? The company I once worked for had a policy for dealing with cruddy sales people: They put them in management positions so that they could screw up more people’s lives. Andy is the exception to the rule, a good rep that made a ...... Read More
Comments (1)Opportunity
If you asked me if I’d see a black president in my lifetime, I would have said, "No." I would have thought there would be a white woman before a black man. This is a historic moment and one that I am drinking in. I just got off of the phone with my 84 year old father, a native of Kingston, Jamaica. Dad came to the United States in 1932 and settled in Boston. He volunteered for service in WW ...... Read More
Comments (2)Don't call me
A few weeks ago I attended a shocking seminar on Internet safety for kids. My three teenaged girls are far smarter than I when it comes to social networking but I am no slouch when it comes to being computer savvy. The fact that I left the auditorium shocked at the eminent risk despite my extensive Internet knowledge is not what I am blogging about. It’s a small piece of that talk that ...... Read More
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