The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

I was recently talking with a sales rep for a heavy equipment company. He sells agriculture and construction equipment, you know tractors, front loaders, bull dozers, excavators, forklifts…big machines most men (and all little boys) wish they had a reason to buy. He was telling me about a particular situation he was working through with a potential customer.

The New Year has recently come and gone and we are moving fast into 2013 and trying to put 2012 behind us. If you were like many marketers and business owners, 2012 was full of uncertainty as the economy continued its slow growth rate, the fiscal cliff was looming and we were in an election year. This uncertainty impacted consumer confidence negatively and many businesses held off on capital investments and hiring. What does 2013 hold for us? What can we learn from this to help our sales and marketing strategies?

Beware!  Danger to your sales strategy is lurking as close as your telephone receiver. How so?

One comment heard often is there is so much to know in digital and it changes all the time… how to keep up with everything? That got me thinking about some of the free resources available to aide in the quest to know more about digital and improve your digital sales strategy.

Bet you love the Sherlock Holmes you have on your sales team. He’s analytical, hyper-focused on solving the puzzle, enjoys research, and always knows where to find the answers!  

Of course you wouldn't. Whether you're a manager, salesperson or consumer, you wouldn't hire someone to do a job or to work for you without ample evidence they have been successful for other people.

Generating qualified leads with inbound marketing is not complicated or difficult.  It’s a repeatable process that can be broken down in only 561 words!

• Create a blog and graciously share information that matters to your business and your customers – this means regularly share insight, expertise, real world scenarios and stories that will suck your readers in and keep their attention until the end of the post.  Give them information they can use and commit to providing valuable content. Keep it real...no nonsense here.

The New Year celebration is over and if you are like many salespeople you have set a few personal and professional goals for the upcoming year.

One New Year’s resolution that’s made by numerous business professionals around the world is to network more often and network more efficiently. One of the ways that business professionals can go about this is to utilize social networking sites like LinkedIn and Twitter, to build your personal brand and reputation.  

Sellers often bemoan that they find themselves deep into the sales process with a new prospect, only to discover there isn't much budget available.

Sometimes, despite all our efforts to break the ice and establish credibility in advance of that first call to a prospect, and despite having well-crafted and articulated valid business reasons, the prospect is still reluctant to see us.

On a recent client visit, the main purpose was to help them plan their 2013 strategy.  One of the topics we covered was how the management team and sales people could remain digitally relevant in 2013.   After seeing the movie "Parental Guidance," it was obvious one of the lead characters, Artie Decker could relate.

When you’re trying to nail down an appointment with a business owner or manager, it is important to remember the root word of business: Busy.

She’s highly assertive, exceedingly convincing, always taking charge of situations (even when it’s not her job), and a natural closer. She just can’t help building a case for what she believes in and she relishes the opportunity to change people’s minds so they finally see things her way.

Improving sales performance happens when salespeople do the little things that make a difference.  The best salespeople do these things without being told — they even do these things when their manager is not looking:

There was an incident when my daughter was still very young, in which she was happily singing-along to a song on the radio.  We got to the grocery store and went in to grab a few things, and then headed back out to the car.  When I started the car, she started to cry.  “What’s wrong,” I asked?  “The radio’s not playing my favorite song anymore…” 

As we move into a new year, great sales leaders in every industry and every country will develop a new or somewhat revised strategy for the challenges and opportunities they see before them.

Happy New Year!  In 2012, our Appointment Lab has learned that setting appointments for our clients involves clear organizational planning and preparation in targeting the ideal customer.