The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

If you follow the stock market you know McDonald’s stock has been on fire of late! Maybe the secret to their success is hiring people who can open and close!  

Closing gets all the love, and all the headlines. The big closes lead to high fives and mentions in the company newsletter, and keep you coming back for more! If you can’t close, you can’t sell. “Coffee is for closers!” 

But can you OPEN? Not open the conversation, open the door to the opportunity. One sure fire way to close more deals is to get more, higher-quality appointments. It’s tougher than ever to get attention and establish credibility, and you need to do both to get the first appointment with the very best prospects. It’s no longer sufficient to pick up the phone and leave a “get to know you and your business” voicemail, or pop in for a cold call with confidence. To be a great “opener” you have to do your homework, and your homework has to result in a valid business reason for the prospect to meet with you. 

A great valid business reason should express why the prospect would want to meet with you (not the other way around) and has three core elements:

We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. How to Take a Vacation and Still Hit Your Number — HubSpot

Taking time off to recharge is important, but too many salespeople don't get away because they're worried they'll fall behind. Taking a vacation without missing quota is possible with good planning and collaboration. This article shows you how.

The results from the most recent State of Sales Survey conducted by Salesforce reveals some interesting insight into what the best salespeople do to close more deals and make lots of money. 280 salespeople as well as clients were surveyed.

If you are paying attention to the news, you may have noticed that lots of people are under investigation from both sides of the political spectrum. The dictionary definition of investigation is “a formal inquiry or systematic study.”

While running a workshop last week, I was reminded of the power of a salesperson when they slip into investigation mode. That systematic process is the key to building trust and demonstrating value in the early stages of a relationship.

No matter what you are selling, you should go far beyond just needs analysis or selling features and benefits of your product or service. You want to have a business conversation, looking for a desired business result that you can help them accelerate. 

We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 21 Habits to Become a More Effective Salesperson — HubSpot

What behaviors makes for an effective salesperson, and by extension, a team of effective salespeople? This list, gathered from observing the habits of top salespeople, will help you improve your game.

Sales talent is tough to find. Those who are great at what they do aren’t usually spending their time on job boards. According to a survey from The Adler Group, 15 percent of employed professionals are active candidates pursuing a new opportunity — another 68 percent are open to listening to new opportunities, but aren’t actively looking. So how do you find those talented salespeople you need?

Some sales go from step to step and lead smoothly to an agreement and an order. Other times, things stall and you’re not sure why. It might happen at one of the three tipping points in the sale process. There are many reasons a stall can happen, and there’s a quick way to determine what is helping and what is hindering the process.

At some point in our life, we’ve had someone tell us to draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper, and write all the pros for a decision on one side and the cons on the other. The formal name is a “decision balance sheet.” Ben Franklin was known to use them. What makes this simple exercise effective is that it helps us put on paper what we already know — but haven’t thought enough about. 

Another variation of this process is a force-field analysis. It’s used in social science. Our founder Steve Marx applied it to the sales process. The force field approach looks at the forces that are influencing a situation. It looks to see if they are driving movement toward a goal (helping) or blocking momentum toward a goal (hindering). 

We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 9 Strategies for Using Customer Testimonials in Your Content — Content Marketing Institute

We look for and act on (even if subconsciously) social proof in all areas our life – including how we behave and the purchasing decisions we make online. Testimonials are a type of review and social proof. They serve the same purpose (guiding potential customers and helping overcome objections), but they’re different in one big way: Testimonials are sought and selected by you. This means you have full control over which testimonials are used, as well as where and how they are displayed. Here are nine ways to leverage testmonials in your content.

Salespeople are hired to sell. When a salesperson can’t close a deal with a prospect, it can seem as if they’ve failed. The often-quoted idea that a good salesperson can sell anything to anyone is rooted in one of those lingering old-school, outdated ideas that the selling process is a contest to be won at any cost.

It’s true that in every sales process, someone is going to be convinced to say "yes." Either the prospect will say, “Yes, I’ll buy this” or the salesperson will say, “Yes, you’re not going to buy this.” But what gets so many salespeople off-track and spinning their wheels on lousy prospects is the belief that the only right answer is the prospect saying "yes." 

When you have openings on your staff, it's easy to get enamored with a candidate and jump to the finish line. That will always cost you in the long run. Every organization I know takes longer than they should to remove non-performing salespeople. It's just a fact. So you need to hire tough, so you can manage easy. If you hire easy, then you have to manage tough (threaten, push, and poke to get them to do what they should be doing).