Sales begins with you, not your customer.  If you can begin with these three things, you will be successful in sales. But if you don’t believe in yourself, your process, and your ability to help your customer, success will be difficult for you.  1. Believe in yourself 100%. Too many salespeople don’t believe in themselves. They don’t have enough confidence, and if you don’t have enough confidence, how do you ever expect your customers to buy into what you say?  Belief in yourself means that you have the ability and the skillset to inspire confidence in you. Now, that’s not t ..read more

How does your team measure up? If you’re a sales manager, use these 14 questions to help you determine whether or not you really have top performers.  A lot of people say or think they’re top performers, but they’re not. If you’re not a manager, how do you personally measure up to these standards? Where can you grow? 1. Does the individual look at their sales quota and share with their leader a plan to overachieve it?  Top performers don’t look at their quota and say, how am I going to hit it? They look at it and say, how am I going to overachieve it?  2. Does the individual ..read more

Over the years, and after working with thousands of salespeople, I’ve found these ten questions determine your success in prospecting. I’m going to walk you through ten questions, and I want you to answer truthfully. The total number of yes’s or no’s are going to help you determine whether or not you’re going to be successful prospecting. At the end, scroll down to see what your results mean! 1. Do I have a dedicated time to prospect daily or weekly, and do I honor those times?  People who are successful do not deviate from prospecting. They have a regular time and they stick with it ..read more

You can increase your sales performance significantly just by practicing time management.  Time is one of our only resources in short supply. I’m going to share 10 strategies for how you can get control of your time.  1. Plan your day. “Tomorrow begins today.”  If you wake up in the morning and you haven’t planned the day out, specifically what you’re going to do, guess what? You’re going to waste.  2. Build your plan, work your plan.  You’ve taken the time to build your plan the night before, then that day you actually work it.  You own the day. Don’t let th ..read more

Closing deals is about continuously converting sales relationships from prospect to long-term customer.  I don’t like the word close because it is synonymous with terminating, or ending. I want to convert and have the customer around for a long time. Helping you with other things in the future means additional business! This blog continues our series on The 7 C’s of Successful Sales Hunting Give a clear, timely CTA. Converting is a process we go through at each step, each conversation, each communication because we have a very clear call to action.  I’m amazed at the number of ..read more

We become credible when we become proactive in helping our customers. You can make active choices to build credibility, but in the end it’s customer perception that has the final say. This blog continues our series on The 7 C’s of Successful Sales Hunting What do your customers believe? We all think we’re credible, but it’s irrelevant what we think. What do our customers believe?  Would you buy from a salesperson who you didn’t deem as credible?  via GIPHY We don’t buy stuff just for the sake of buying, but because it’s going to help us with something and  has a level of ..read more

How good are you at connecting with people and remaining in touch with them?  Connection begins with your sales prospecting process. I can have the best product, the best price, the best service, the best everything, but if customers and prospects don’t hear from you, it’s totally meaningless. This blog continues our series on The 7 C’s of Successful Sales Hunting 1. Connect through gratitude and referrals.  The number of connections you’re able to have each week is a real determining factor of your sales success. How many conversations are you having each day? Not how many ema ..read more

It’s not about how we want to communicate. How does your customer want to? I find too many salespeople think that sales is all about emails, emails, emails, social media, emails, emails, social media.  It’s much more than that. If I want my messaging to succeed, I have to be able to master every form of communication. This blog continues our series on The 7 C’s of Successful Sales Hunting 1. Master every form of communication.  I’ve got a tremendous number of customers that I was only able to reach by phone. That’s an unusual thing. The phone works far more than we give it cred ..read more

There is a difference between arrogance and confidence.  Of course, confidence that borders on arrogance has no place in sales. Confidence is about putting the other person first. Arrogance is about putting yourself first. Are you truly confident when you’re in front of your customer? Is your customer confident with you?  This blog continues our series on The 7 C’s of Successful Sales Hunting Confidence cuts two ways. Confidence is not only you being confident, but the customer being confident in you. What happens is we actually create a level of competence. The customer now see ..read more

Forget the early bird. The most persistent bird gets the worm.  Ask yourself: Am I consistent in how I use my time, how I schedule my time? Am I consistent in how I stay engaged with my customers and how I follow up?  Many salespeople struggling to close deals are simply lacking one thing: consistency. Consistency in time management. The most successful salespeople are the ones who are absolutely consistent with their time. I get to work with some absolute top performers in a number of industries, people who are rocking it and commanding massive, massive paychecks. In fact, they ..read more