A Sales Compass – A Blog by B2B Sales Connections

What do your customers have in common?  How many employees do they have?  What industries do they operate in?  How often do they use your product?  What related products do they also use in addition to your product?

When you start to track your past successes, you can identify commonalities that help you define who is most likely to buy from you in the future.    In doing so, you clearly define your target market,  ensuring you will spend most of your time talking to prospects that are most likely to buy.

For an automated sales tool that tracks your sales and clearly defines your targets, check out the Target Market Definition Tool at www.b2bsalesconnections.com/automated_tools.php.

Aim Higher!

Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Connections

www.b2bsalesconnections.com, www.linkedin.com/in/susanenns, or www.twitter.com/SusanEnns

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One thing I hear from sales representatives all the time is “My sales manager tells me I need to do more prospecting calls but the days don’t seem long enough.  I am already working long hours each day so I don’t know where I can find the time!”

To survive in sales, finding the time to prospect is not optional!  The best way to do this is to arrive at the office Monday morning with your week already booked.  (more…)

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If you are like most sales people, you have a shoe box full of receipts from last year.  Unfortunately, when tax time rolls around, you are going to have a big sorting job ahead of you. 

For this year, however, why not start the year off right?  I recommend throwing the shoe box away and replacing it with a filing system for your deductible expenses.

I am by no means an accountant, but here is a filing system that was recommended to me to organize receipts for sales representatives.   (more…)

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Look for Unrecognized Problems & Unanticipated Solutions

One of the best sales questioning techniques I ever learned was from a former boss & mentor.  He delivered a training session that taught us when a customer gave a key requirement statement we had to take a moment and ask ourselves “which means”?   The key was to never assume you know what the customer actually meant; you had to pose further questions which would dig deeper to find the unrecognized problem.  This would help the customer fully explain the reason for the need and the implication for their operation if they did not meet the requirement.

(more…)

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Did you know that if you have a $1 million quota, your time is worth $2,000 per hour?  Are you doing the same things over and over again?  Automating proposal templates, automatic price calculators, and email templates can free up more selling hours in your day.  How much more could you sell if you freed up just an hour more per week to spend on selling?

For more information, visit http://www.b2bsalesconnections.com/automated_tools.php

Aim Higher!

Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Connections
www.b2bsalesconnections.com or www.linkedin.com/in/susanenns

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You are not born knowing how to walk. But you had to, one step at a time, to make the first step. After each attempt and all of your hard work, each step turned into a learned skill where you were able to finally walk.

It is the same in sales – you have to put the efforts in motion and start learning about new sales tools available to you. There is something you simply have to start doing that your competition is not doing and that is learning about your customers’ situation, their wants and needs.  With trigger events you will be better prepared for challenges that customers are putting in front of us each day.

• Trigger events will help you with research and qualification process.
• Trigger events will give you the clue about the timing.
• Trigger events are here to help you differentiate prospects from suspects.

Alen Majer

www.AlenMajer.com

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