Okay, you’re in sales. You have a decent base salary and a good but normal incentive and commission plan. You know, not Beverly Hills real estate commission money. Not Wall Street money, but the kind of money you make as a regular good salesperson. If you hit all your numbers, if you make your forecast, […]
Need Help? Just Ask For It!
When you’re stuck, it never hurts to ask for help When you’re stuck, when you just can’t make any headway with a customer, when you feel that you have exhausted all of your own resources and ideas and don’t feel that you have another move left in you, it’s time to call for help. The […]
Refusing To Accept “No”
Sometimes when your back is to the wall. When for whatever reason you have to win the business, you have to do all you can, pull out all the plugs, eat your pride, and remain laser-focused to win that business. Sometimes when failure is not an option you have to dig deep into yourself and […]
Are You Selling What Your Customers Want?
Our customers will buy what they want, now what we want to sell. That is kind of a pain isn’t it? No matter how great our product is. No matter how compelling our sales pitch is. No matter how absolutely convinced we are that our customer should be buying what we’re selling. If that customer […]
Great Salespeople Never Quit!
If you are in sales and you treat it like, well just a job, you will never succeed. You have to do it with intensity and passion and seriousness. This is the life you chose. This is how you make your living. This is what you do to put bread on the table. This in […]
Kick Start Your Sales Today!
Are you stuck in those sales doldrums, the bane of even the best salespeople? You know what I’m talking about. Everything has come to a standstill. You’re not even hearing from your good customers. You are not getting any answers on those quotes that looked so promising when you sent them. You are sitting at […]
We Are The Alchemists
I recently talked to a board shop owner who had a customer visit from a large military OEM. There were four younger engineers in the group and they had never been in a PCB shop before. When they were invited to tour the facility, they were actually stunned at the amount of equipment, people, […]
We Have Met The Enemy And It’s Our Employees
Some of you are not going to like this column. I know that. But with all due respect what I am going to say here needs to be said. So, listen up and read this with an open mind. As I have been talking to company owners the last six months, all of them by […]
Listening Again and Again
Every now and then I feel the urge to write about listening. Yes, that great art, of not only listening but going the extra mile and hearing. I know that I have done a column on this subject before, actually maybe about once a year. But it still needs to be brought up, maybe for […]
Salespeople Say The Darndest Things
If we only had (whatever it is your company doesn’t have) I could double my forecast. Your product is your product, sell what you have, not what you don’t have. If we only had the spec or qualification we could double our sales, everyone is asking for it now. Same as the last excuse. Sell […]