How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

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  EASTeam10/08/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  Excellent article???again! Clearly time to reassess whom you are, prioritize activities & then execute - with your internal value system firmly in place.
  
  Absolutely loved Keith Rosen's video from last week as well. This guy gets it??? Moreover, I feel his message is even more important in this type of climate.
  
  Do not allow ???fear based??? decision making to pull you down the wrong path. Believe that is the default setting for most.
  
  As always, appreciate your sharing???.
  
  Kirk Abraham
  www.engineeringsolutionsteam.com

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  dave.stein@...10/08/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  Great list.
  
  Just one point, Geoffrey, having been through these downturns a few times as well...
  
  A downturn doesn't mean that no one is buying anything.
  
  Some companies cut way back, sure. Others get very concerned about vendor risk. Still others require bulletproof cost justification.
  
  But business still gets done. Buyers buy and sellers sell. Money exchanges hands. What must we do as sellers is follow the recommendations in your post so that we're still in whatever deals are being done.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine10/08/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  QUOTE: Still others require bulletproof cost justification.
  
  Zounds! I missed that one in the list. You need to build a business case that's ROI-centric. Absolutely.
  
  
  
  It also occurs to me that you can use the meltdown as a way to use "scarcity" as reason to buy now. You can say that your company is offering a special discount in order to secure good customers in a difficult economy, but that that discount will go away if the economy recovers or the stock market stabilizes, or whatever. Not a fully-formed thought, though, just a top-of-the-head idea.

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  shoub10/09/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  Why is it we need a meltdown before we think of these common sense ideas?
  
  Try search engine optimization. Your customers are looking for YOU.

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  saunders9010/09/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  It is amazing that it takes dramatic events for us all to redirect and concentrate on the fundamentals. Great article.

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  barcodeguy10/10/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  I like everything about the article except the quote at the top.
  "When times are good, anybody can sell. It???s at times like this that you find out if you???re really a sales professional??? or just an order taker."
  frankhurtte - you had it right. However....
  In the face of declining margins and increased competition, many companies have gone to internet ordering to reduce their cost per order. They are employing order takers at lower salaries, and/or commissions than the true salespeople who have the ability to guide a prospect to make informed choices. Companies have gone to the, "What part number do you need? How many? How would you like it shipped? by order takers who are constantly extolled by "sales management" (and I use the term loosely), to get to the next call. If the prospect does not know what they want, the salesperson is not in a position to offer any level of expertise, or advice, and they are also being pushed to get to the next call. Also, prospects are unwilling to pay extra for the "expertise" of a true salesperson, and do not really care what the "cost" of a bad lower price choice might be.

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  MWI Negotiation10/10/08 Report as spam
  7

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  Geoffrey,
  
  Great, inspiring article.
  
  One more point to note ??? selling and closing deals comes from the art of building and maintaining relationships. While we all have the goal of closing and closing fast, it???s important to remind ourselves to move in stages, starting with building a trustful, working relationship. A focus on building relationships and establishing trust today will most likely lead to closing more tomorrow (or whenever things DO improve). It???s important to have a long term view in a sales position.
  
  As a vendor of professional services (negotiation training and coaching programs), we???re highly focused on building long-term valuable relationships with clients (and teaching them to do the same) ??? there???s nothing stopping anyone from doing THAT these days! The outcome of these efforts will most likely be long-term trusting relationships that will, in our experience, develop into a closed sale.
  
  Thanks,
  Stephen Frenkel
  Director of Negotiation Programs, MWI
  www.mwi.org/negotiation

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  david_csa11/04/08 Report as spam
  8

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  Reminds me of something Harvey Mackay said in Beware teh Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt almost 20 years ago now... In lesson 22, on beating the competition: "Just Show Up... You're a winner 80 percent of the time. Most accounts are won because nobody else is calling on them."

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  Mayodeleon11/12/08 Report as spam
  9

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  Here is what I teach my sales staff: Balance!
  Balancing every aspect of your sales business is critical. We all know the 80/20 theory, this is where 80% of the revenue comes from the top 20% account list.
  Here are two lessons from my top ten list plus a BONUS TIP:
  
  1. Do not neglect your customers especially during a meltdown. Special note: Your competitors might and that will make you look even better for not neglecting them.
  
  2. Follow our tax dollars. If you run a legitimate business, it is a reciprocal business practice. We all have to pay taxes and that market will most likely never go away.
  
  BONUS TIP: Since most of your competition will chase that top 20% of your area market, you can double your business by balancing your market chase to include the neglected 80%. Then follow these excellent tips that Geoffrey James shares above and you should prosper during any economic time.
  
  Good luck,
  Mayo DeLeon - Founder
  http://www.proposalware.com

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  uma gulati12/17/08 Report as spam
  10

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  I personally feel that these ideas are applicable not only in recession but during normal period also. i feel that the biggest tool could be the sales promotion tools.

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  irina saitoc12/17/08 Report as spam
  11

  RE: How To Sell MORE During the Meltdown

  "A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind"