I’ve stumbled upon a killer app for hiring sales people. One of my clients was looking for a new sales executive and decided to use their own technology to support the hiring process. Storyvine is an application that allows candidates to record a video on their smart phone. Which is then ‘automagically’ edited into a high quality candidate ‘movie’ and …
Why Prospects Don’t Trust You
I recently sat in on a client presentation for a prospective customer. The sales person was intelligent, articulate, and his presentation was flawless. The rep was well trained on describing how the product solved our prospect’s problem. However, when the prospect asked specific questions about the examples shared during the presentation, the salesperson stumbled and offered only vague generalities. It …
The Secret to My Success
Some people consider me successful so I wanted to share the story of my success. In 1991, I graduated from college and moved from Connecticut to Santa Cruz, California with $500 in my pocket. I did not have a job lined up and my only safety net was a friend who agreed to let me sleep on his couch for …
It’s Hard to Discover Need
Solution Selling dates back to 1975 when Frank Watts 1st used this term while working for Wang Laboratories. Mike Bosworth launched his Solution Selling training organization in 1983 and SPIN Selling was first published by Neil Rackham in 1988. What all these groundbreaking methodologies have in common is they focus on understanding the needs of the prospect prior to presenting …
Are You Afraid of Slowing Down?
For me, slowing down is terrifying. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I wonder if I have come to a complete stop. What if I never get going again? Do you ever feel this way? For many years I have measured my worth in terms of effort and output. The past few years have been a journey of letting …
The Secret to Cold Calling
I recently put up a handful of videos on cold calling techniques on YouTube. Not surprisingly, I got the usual round of folks who decry the use of cold calling at all and say it’s unprofessional, inefficient and a waste of time. I wanted to put that myth to bed once and for all. Click Here To Download My Cold …
Are You Afraid of Slowing Down?
For me, slowing down is terrifying. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I wonder if I have come to a complete stop. What if I never get going again? Do you ever feel this way? For many years I have measured my worth in terms of effort and output. The past few years have been a journey of letting …
What sex education teaches us about sales.
Who do adolescents look to for advice as their thoughts and curiosity turn to matters of the birds and the bees? These days the answer is most likely Google but think back to the when the nearest thing to sex advice came from a ‘borrowed’ copy of Playboy magazine. Most likely, you turned to your friends for advice on sex. …
Why Social Selling is a Joke
Today I spoke with a woman who reached out to me for coaching. She was recently hired as a salesperson at a multi-billion dollar company. She is one of 70 reps in her branch office. They have thousands nationwide. She received five weeks of product training. She was given a list of qualifying questions and told to go sell. She …
Nobody Showed Up To My Webinar
A month ago I had a brilliant idea… or so I thought. The plan was to host a conference call offering sales people the opportunity to have me coach them live on real deals they were working on. Over the course of an hour, I imagined I could coach five or six people through tough selling situations they were facing. …