The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

What is the best response when asked, “Is the price negotiable?”

Your first reaction might be to lower the price to close the deal.

• Interpreting their question as a request will result in lowering the price.
• Offering to lower the price, only to find they will continually ask for more.

A better response is to demonstrate the value of your offering.

• Work with your prospects to help them better understand the value of your services, products, and deliverables.
• Show them the great deal they are already getting when evaluated in terms of the specific value you’re bringing to their company and how doing business with you will help them meet their goals.

Hunters and farmers are crucial for a balanced and effective sales team. Hunters actively seek out new business opportunities, while farmers nurture and grow existing client relationships.

Setting benchmarks for these two distinct roles requires a nuanced approach to recognizing their unique strengths and contributions.

Most of us have posted so much on social media, it’s hard to remember it all. But the internet doesn’t forget. When was the last time you did a brand audit of yourself?

If you’re a professional in sales or leadership, will your online brand send the message you want?

It takes a lot of work to get a first meeting with a prospect.

While connecting with a prospect and getting a meeting is a series of events and second chances, that’s not the case with your needs analysis or discovery meeting. The discovery meeting is your one chance to gather information critical to creating a proposal the prospect will be interested in purchasing.

Let’s look at seven signs that you might be doing your needs analysis wrong.

Culture is defined as a way of life for a group of people. When in doubt about what to do, the members will fall back on what they have learned from their culture. They don’t even think about it—they know what their culture would tell them to do.

Business organizations all have a culture, and when you walk into a business and take an instant like or dislike to being there, you are experiencing their culture. Sometimes they don’t even have to say anything—it’s an attitude you can almost feel.

Business-to-business organizations don’t often have potential customers walk into a physical location. Often a salesperson is how the client and prospect experience your organization’s culture. What is your sales culture telling them?

Moving into 100% commissioned sales in my 30’s was one of those “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” moments in my life. Truth be told, it wasn’t a moment; it was a journey. I remember trying to learn all I could from the veteran salespeople on my team. But, when I read the book Sales Dogs I began to understand that the answer was not to be found in trying to copy the talents of other salespeople, but to learn how to leverage my own unique mix of talents.

There are core sales talents that people need to be successful in sales. Yet even the most talented salespeople will have a unique mix of those talents, and how they play out in practice is as different as one dog to the next.