Archive: Closing
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Nov 15, 2009
No CommentsTake it away?
One opp this week was particularly frustrating. This company uses 3 of our products in the IT side of the house. One of our products can also be used for help desk / service desk. We had a shot at winning their whole service desk business, but they went with a bigger, well-known company. They...
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Nov 06, 2009
No CommentsWhat I learned in Sicily…
Had a great vacation in Sicily – the history, the food, the ruins, and even the wild dogs running around Palermo were all great. I even picked up some valuable ideas about getting control in your sales cycle. This one hotel where I was staying was in a great location in Taormina, but the service...
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Oct 28, 2009
No CommentsHow to stay strong in your tough deals
One thing that I see time and time again (and frankly have done myself), is that when the selling is getting tough, and the customer is getting demanding, it’s easy to tell yourself that if you do what the customer demands you will then win the business. You may hear them say something like: The...
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Oct 09, 2009
No CommentsGetting from here to there
A buddy of mine was telling me about a deal he was working on. Current customer, selling new product to them, he has won the deal, price is right….the only thing is that the guy asked for 0ne more demo. He wants to see the product working in a specific environment blah blah blah. My...
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Oct 02, 2009
1 CommentThe Power of Asking!
I deal with different sales people, various customers, and services and technical people both at my company and at the companies I am selling to, and when things get difficult I constantly rely on the Power of Asking! Want to know if a customer is going to buy your software? Ask them! Is the customer...
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Sep 28, 2009
No CommentsReduce sales cycle by 50%
You know what happens then, right? You sell twice as much. Every month salespeople sit there with a few deals they are “working.” The client is deciding (avoiding a decision) or getting approval (waiting for someone else who is avoiding a decision) or in the signing process (sitting on some desk somewhere with someone who...
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Sep 22, 2009
No CommentsRazzle-dazzle…right…..
Geez, I have a shirt like this guy in The Onion. I like my shirts a little less blue than than, but I have plenty of those salesman shirts…. Razzle-dazzle is definitely over-rated…………but the salesperson does have a role in the “magic” that leads to a close. I was talking to a friend about this...
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Sep 22, 2009
No Comments5 Tips for handling difficult negotiations and customers
It’s going to happen eventually (if it hasn’t yet!), but eventually you are going to come across a customer that has no concept of “win-win” and believes it’s only a win if they get everything and give you nothing. These negotiations and sales cycles can be draining and challenging and it takes a lot of...
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Sep 08, 2009
No CommentsDirty Tricks…
This article in InfoWorld was interesting: http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/dirty-vendor-tricks-909. Hmm…..dirty tricks from software vendors…. Absolutely, this happens. I would say that many companies actually encourage salespeople to do this. I remember someone telling me I needed to just show more PPTs and “sell everything as a solution.” For that person, they meant, “The product looks terrible –...
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Sep 04, 2009
2 CommentsDoing What You Couldn’t
So much of selling is calling people, dealing with objections and closing. I get tons of hints and tips from people on trying this or trying that to “get the deal closed.” All we are doing really is trying to fine-tune our process to get better efficiency. It’s like we have a sales machine we...
