The New Jobs of Sales and Marketing: facilitate the buying before the buyer
It’s time for a rant. After decades of writing books and articles explaining why we close such a small percentage of prospects and how, exactly, to facilitate the Buy Side to close much more, I’m going to say what I really think. I’ll begin with my surprise: why do sales and marketing largely ignore the […]
Sales is an Outdated Model
Can you think of any business paradigms that have stayed the same over the past 100 years? These days we run our businesses differently, with new models of hiring, training, leading, and executing; we have the use of unimaginable amounts of information and search capability to connect with new people and ideas. We now care […]
12 Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers don’t buy
Do you sit and wait for your buyer’s to close? They need your solution. They like you. They are OK with the price. What’s going on? Here are the ‘Dirty Little Secrets’ of why buyers don’t buy, taken from my book of the same name: Sales focuses on solution placement and needs assessment, and has no skill […]
We Close Only The Low Hanging Fruit
80% of your prospects will buy a solution similar to yours within 2 years of your connection, but not from you; your relationship-building, price breaks, marketing campaigns, etc. are irrelevant until they have their ducks in a row and are ready to bring in a solution. Indeed: the time it takes buyers to manage changes they’ll […]
Two Cold Call Case Studies: Why Your Cold Calls Aren’t Working
I believe that cold calls are quite important as part of an overall sales strategy. How they are done, however, determines their success. If the goal of the call is to gather data, share product information, start a conversation, or make an appointment, the odds are that the outcomes will be less than successful: sellers claim over […]
Do You Want to Sell? Or Have Someone Buy?
Part 1 of a 2 part series on understanding a buyer’s needs. Do you know the difference between how you sell and how buyers buy-and why the difference? After a conversation with my colleague Erik Luhrs I’d like to expand the definition of ‘buying’. But first, a question. Would you like to enter, influence, or […]
The Real “Buyer’s Journey” or, the reason selling doesn’t cause buying.
I moved to London in 1983 to start up a tech company after spending years as a successful sales person. After years of ‘understanding’ and ‘qualifying’ prospects, getting appointments and networking, presenting and following up, I thought I understood buyers well-enough to become one. But I was wrong. My new role taught me the differences […]
Sales, Marketing and Social Can Be More Successful: hint – it’s not about your content
Sales, marketing, and social marketing attempt to place solutions and create relationships by supplying great content, discovering likely prospects, and creating trust. Unfortunately sellers end up closing a small fraction – less than 5% – of those they reach, and marketers and social end up closing even less. Our products are terrific. So what’s causing our failure? PROBLEMS WITH […]
Making Negotiation Win-Win
Using current negotiation models, people feel they are giving up more than they want in exchange for receiving less than they deserve. As part of standard practice, negotiation partners going into a negotiation calculate their bottom line – what they are willing to give up, and what they are willing to accept – and then […]
How the Sales Industry Colludes in Failure
Would you consider a baseball player with a 95% failure rate Successful? Would you choose a surgeon with a 95% failure rate? Can you think of any field but sales, with an industry-standard close rate of 5%, that considers 95% failure ‘Success’? Using targets, commissions, hiring, and profits based on a 5% close rate, the […]
