Insights, inspiration and ideas. Observations on real-life challenges that our clients are facing and practical strategies to address them.
Recently I heard someone say that the behaviour of the modern savvy buyer has caused the traditional sales model to be turned on its head. I’m not sure about that, but it definitely needs to be turned 90 degrees to the right. The traditional product cycle was to develop a product or service, pass it to marketing to promote, marketing would pass leads to sales and sales would follow up with
When I first moved into a sales role, it was drummed into me that I was to sell “solutions”, not products. Solution selling became the mantra for decades, and it even became a trademarked methodology. Unfortunately, the term has become so over-used in sales circles that it is in danger of becoming meaningless. If you ask a sales executive if they sell products or solutions, they will usually say “Solutions,
I am constantly amazed by the number of elevator pitches I read that are either not elevator pitches, or are just plain bad. Every executive, marketing and sales person needs one for their company and proposition, and everyone who wants to increase their reputation and network needs a personal elevator pitch too. Here is a simple formula for creating a great elevator pitch, but before that it is worth a
It is not widely known that Marcus Tullius Cicero, the outspoken Roman politician who lived from 106-44BC, ran a Management Academy. There is absolutely no historical evidence for this, but if you analyse one of his more famous quotes you know that must have been true. I use this in many of my sales, negotiation and communication workshops facilitated by Pure Potential. “If you wish to persuade me, you must
I have always suspected that the human species has not evolved much physically and mentally in the last ten thousand years or so, although the social evolution has been amazing. Watching David Phillips’ superb TEDx talk recently I discovered that there is a discipline called Evolutionary Psychology which investigates that very topic. This is about the hard-wired human behaviour, evolved to keep us alive in primitive times, that is still
Back in the day, before PowerPoint, before overhead projectors, even before printed words on a page, skilled orators would wow audiences with nothing but their words and personality. How, I hear you ask, could anyone possibly present without a PowerPoint deck? It is worth having a look at Aristotle’s views on Rhetoric, because what captivated and persuaded audiences over two thousand years ago holds true now – we haven’t evolved
Our physical evolution has progressed infinitely slowly over millions of years. By contrast, our social evolution is progressing at a rapid pace, and it is easy to overlook the fact that our minds and bodies remain the same as we were thousands of years ago when society was very different. Our brains contain the Limbic system, shared with other mammals, and its function is to help us survive. That part
“We need more sales leads” “Nobody’s buying at the moment” “It’s a numbers game” Familiar? According to one of the top sales training companies, 90% of the people we are trying to sell to are not in buying mode. So how do you find a buyer? Some telemarketing teams are still trawling through lists in the traditional way, with a much less that 10% success rate. That is not a