The One Piece of Advice You Can’t Sell Without

I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a loyal reader of RainToday.com. I subscribe to their newsletters, I visit their site several times per week, and I take a lot of their advice and put it into action.

So imagine my glee this weekend when I came across a free ebook that they’re offering up. 34 pages of quick-hit advice from some of the best in the business. This baby is an easy read, but it’s one that you’re going to want to read, read, and read again.

One of my favorite entries in this fantastic ebook comes from Alan Weiss, who wrote the book Million Dollar Consulting.

“If you’re talking about price, you’ve lost control of the discussion.“

As salespeople, we all know that to be true, right? When I first started my career, I would cringe every time I heard that dreaded, yet almost inevitable question, “How much is it?” I always go back to that Zig Ziglar standby nowadays — “Price is a one time thing, but cost is a lifetime investment.”

And it doesn’t matter what you’re selling, really. Once you get that mindset, I’m convinced that you could sell anything. Weiss drives that point home flawlessly, using time-shares as his vehicle to do so.

And his contribution to the ebook is but one of 11 contributors. Have you downloaded it yet?

Keep Those Reporting Duties In Mind!

I’ve lived this from both sides. Not only keeping track of my activities for my own use each day, but making sure that those in my organization who need to know actually GET to know! We haven’t gotten too far into the whole ‘organizing’ thing on this blog yet, but it seems like something deserving of attention.

I recently did some work with an organization in a training consultant role for their service staff, and was regularly frustrated and confused by how little information their sales staff actually put into their CRM ’solution.’ Time and time again, I would talk to a service representative who either had no idea that a sale had ever been made to an existing customer.

Even worse, there were countless situations where a NEW client was signed, but the service rep was never made aware until a problem arose. By then, that person was backed into a corner, just trying to claw their way out.

So tonight, I was looking for inspiration about this problem exactly. And in that search, I stumbled across a short piece from Seth Godin, who took a look at this from the point of view of a marketer.

Reporting requires organization, something that many of us lack terribly. It’s something that can sink you — or somebody other than you — if you don’t take it seriously. In this ultra-competitive world, the slightest slip-up can sink you. Don’t let something this controllable be your downfall.