One of the guys on my swim team is brutally uninteresting. Now, you’re probably imagining some poor, quiet, introverted chap who can’t make eye contact and hardly ever speaks. Wrong. This guy is talkative, chatty, garrulous, and chronically outgoing. In fact, he has verbal diarrhea—he hardly takes a breath in between sentences. He is an [...]
Southwestern Sales Talk
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I had an interesting message forwarded to me from Paul Matthews, Founder of People Alchemy, Ltd. It stresses the value of your reputation. In sales, your reputation is vital. The other day I overheard some people speaking about me. I was both surprised and grateful for what they had to say. A few days later [...]
I ran across a sales blog from CBS Moneywatch with a good message for all you Southwestern Advantage recruiters. Perfect for summer sales also. These are excerpts from Jeff Haden’s “The Best Sales Technique You’ve Stopped Using.” Read on. “Sometimes sales training and “advanced” sales strategies do more harm than good — especially if the techniques [...]
I had the chance to share some ideas recently at Southwestern’s Great Recruiters Seminar, specifically in a workshop on communication strategies. One of the points I stressed to student managers was to teach new team members how to treat you, from the start. First impressions are tricky. People make rapid assumptions about new acquaintances. Oftentimes, you can [...]
Many of you Southwestern managers may have already seen this if you’re paying attention to youtube…Kenny Brooks, a self-styled comedian who uses a barrage of funny one-liners to sell his cleaning product, has gone viral. Kenny’s sales technique is caught on camera by a prospect. From the looks of this, he didn’t attend a conventional [...]
There are far more than five ways to destroy a Southwestern sales call. But, in the interest of brevity, and of maintaining my small readership, I’ll narrow this to just five. Remember, selling is a complex activity with many variables. Every prospect is different; every sales encounter has a new twist–especially when you’re dealing with [...]
One element of Southwestern sales success–likeability. If you attended Southwestern‘s Sales Schools recently, you may recall Nicholas Boothman sharing the idea that before a prospect buys anything, they have to buy you! If they like you, prospects will look for opportunities to say “yes.” To that end, Tom Hoobyar, NLP Master Practitioner and blogger, shares [...]
Continuing in my “worst ever” series…. As the gatekeeper for Southwestern Company, I get lots of random sales pitches and marketing promotions at work. This may be a bit of a stretch for a sales blog, but here is a real email promotion we received recently at The Southwestern Company. I include the sales pitch in [...]
I didn’t recognize the number, but I was feeling lucky and picked up. It was a call from a salesman selling hotel vacation club memberships. He greeted me by mispronouncing my last name, then reassured me by telling me, “I’m not calling to sell you anything.” He then proceeded to try to sell me something. Sigh. I [...]
My family dined out the other night at Chili’s and we had a killer waitress. She made a great first impression. She sold herself. She sold the food selections. She was attentive. She also got a big tip when we were done. I wish this waitress could sell books with the Southwestern Company–she would do well! As we were [...]
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