It sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? We personalize our conversations all day long with the people we know. It comes to us as naturally as reaching for our first cup of coffee in the morning. Yet, in all my years of selling and coaching others to sell,...
The 5 Planks of Door Opening Success
The perfect pipeline includes a consistent incoming flow of new prospect relationships with the exact right decision makers. Most business leaders and sellers say they can close sales most the time when they are in front of the right prospects. The problem is they...
Get the Prospect Meetings You Want
Did you ever wonder why some sellers can get the “difficult to get” prospect meetings and others can’t? These are the meetings with high level, hard to reach prospects. Do you have some of these prospects on your wish list? Imagine what meeting these people could do...
When You Can’t Get the Sale to Close
Have you ever had a great initial prospect meeting, followed up diligently and then despite your best efforts, can’t get the sale to close? It’s a frustrating part of sales and it happens to almost everyone. Here are some tips to help you keep the sale moving. Ask...
Expert Jack Daly endorses Kopp’s Door Opener® Service
“We have finally found an outsource Door Opening Service that works!” Jack Daly is a sales and sales management expert who has led sales forces numbering in the thousands, operating out of hundreds of offices nationwide. Click below to hear Jack discuss how the Door...
Every Word Matters – Finding the Right Language
Did you ever wish you had more compelling language when speaking with prospects? Most companies spend very little time, if any, developing their sales message and making sure it works. You’ve spent time developing your website and brochure; you may even have a trade...
The Missing Link is Detail
A business development plan is a plan of action. It is a written document that explains the goals of your business and how you are going to achieve them. It contains background information such as market research and analysis, but more importantly, it contains the...
Right Message, Right Situation
A sales message designed for one situation will not necessarily work well in another. For example, you may have perfected your 30-second elevator speech (or “30-second commercial,” as it’s often called). This works great if you are actually in an elevator and have...
Your Message Sucks…Here’s Why
While most of us need a second chance now and then in life, there are rarely second chances in business development. You can’t call a busy vice president or CEO a second time and say, “Hey, our first conversation really didn’t go the way that I wanted it to. Can we...
The New Paradigm of Selling
We can’t control the economic climate we work in, but we can face it and make the most of it. Ten years ago, you could offer to save a company 10 percent on a product or service, and that might have been enough to close the sale. Now, that kind of savings is not worth...
What’s Better…Transactional or Consultative Selling?
What’s better, consultative or transactional selling? It depends on the situation and the company’s goals. The problem comes when you need one approach and miss sales because you have the other. As an example, a seller can sell one item to one decision maker OR sell...
What Corporate Prospects Really Want From You When You Are Networking, Part 2
As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, I recently had the privilege of spending time with some high level Fortune 500 corporate prospects. Knowing they hold the key to my clients’ successes, I asked them what they like and don’t like about their interactions with...