Have you ever heard the phrase that (fill in the blank) is a "natural born salesperson?" What does that even mean?If we buy into the idea that some people have "got it" and other's don't, then if you "have it" you're going to be great if you don't then you're not. There's no such thing as a natural born salesperson. So what makes a salesperson great?What about intelligence? There's zero correlation to intelligence and w […]

In sales, there's a necessary balance between courage and consideration. If you have too little of either one, it's usually going to cause some problems. Most salespeople error on the side of consideration. They want clients to like them, they want to be friendly, they want to gain acceptance and approval. If you happen to be the kind of person who likes to expand your sense of courage - to be courageous - then sales is definitely the field to go into. You get so many chanc […]

I'm giving a talk in a couple of weeks on Sales Transformation. I don't take the word transform lightly.To transform is a significant change from the norm. It is not a small thing.  It is not the same thing as improve. Improve seems to be getting better at what you already do, whereas transform means getting good at something you've not been doing. That's a bigger jump.It occurs to me that if you actually keep improving as you go, that is the transformati […]

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing is a business partner we at Ninety Five 5 value and respect. He recently asked me to write a short response to the following topic:"I Hate Selling, So Now How Do I Convert Leads?"Here was my response:If you hate selling, don't do it.  Forget about it altogether.  Put it out of your mind.  Just focus on helping people be successful in a way you can both feel good about.  When you first talk with " […]

Many of us at Ninety Five 5 have engaged the model of "See Do Get," finding it both intriguing and useful, both qualities I admire.Good models (to me) take a pattern of events that is complex, sophisticated and unpredictable at the individual level, and somehow describe them in words, phrases, images that allow me grasp the bigger picture, put a story to the pattern, glean some meaning from that which is otherwise random.  That can be no simple task.  E = MC […]

A lot of good salespeople and consultants are skilled problem solvers.  Hear problem, solve problem.  Of course before they can solve the problem they need to understand what the client is doing currently and what is causing the problem.  Once they find out, they can tell the client what they need to do.The client says they can't close their books by the 5th of the month and the salesperson asks questions about the process and technology they are using, […]

If you are skillful and have sufficient time, you can often resolve client yellow lights by helping the client see more effective ways to get what they want or avoid what they don't want. Sufficient time can sometimes be a problem with clients with strongly held beliefs and/or with people with strong personalities who dismiss even discussing alternative viewpoints.They may say things like: We'd never do that. That's a complete non-starter. That's not an option. […]

If interested, read the article below this post. Here are a couple of quotes to set the table:When faced with facts that do not fit seamlessly into our individual belief systems, our minds automatically reject (or backfire) the presented facts.The conclusion made here is this: Facts often do not determine our beliefs, but rather our beliefs (usually non-rational beliefs) determine the facts that we accept.Decisions are made based on beliefs. That's one of ours. T […]

Sales is all about providing the client with solutions to their problems. However, solutions -- no matter how great we feel they may be -- have no intrinsic value.Solutions only derive value from the problems they solve -- that people care about, and/or the results they produce. If there are no pressing problems, or important results, there is no compelling solution.We strongly recommend that you take the time to master the ability to "move off the solution." Doing so is […]

If you follow the "Helping Clients Succeed" approach, you're familiar with "Yellow Lights" -- signals the client may buy something that won't give them the results they want or expect; that they may not buy at all; or that may not buy from us.We can bring up yellow lights, the client can, or they can go unspoken. The general rule is to surface and consciously engage yellow lights rather than leave them unspoken.  Unspoken yellow lights – […]