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Quote After more than a decade of working together, Sandler's superb sales and sales management training programs continue to deliver the edge we need. Your most recent prospecting seminar produced another big surge in appointment levels for the attending regions. Sandler's overall training efforts continue to earn an astounding 93 percent approval rating! Quote

Glen Miller
Chief Executive Officer

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    The Hermione Effect - Read more...
You've probably seen the Harry Potter films or read the books about the very intelligent Hermione Granger who always seems to know the answer or have the right information when Harry needs it most. In fact, her character has coined a new term in modern society called "The Hermione Effect" which means to find a woman attractive because she is smarter than you. (If you haven’t heard of this term recently, then ask your kids.)

Journaling for Salespeople - Read more...
I was in the Los Angeles area last week and had the good fortune to visit the Getty Center. I was struck by the amount of space dedicated to manuscripts dating back hundreds and even a thousand years. It turns out that human beings have been keeping written records and manuscripts for a long time. In fact, it dawned on me that the only reason human beings have evolved (if we really have) is because we keep written records of our experiences and ultimately of our collective learning.

Want vs. Need - Read more...
Do clients want to buy from you or do they need to buy from you? Social studies in the classroom teach children about the difference between their wants and needs. Websites show young people that ice cream is not a need but personal hygiene is. Repairing a broken product is a need while replacing said product with a new 'i' version is a want. There's actually quite a lot of content on the web now about want vs need. Why do salespeople care? Because marketing and selling a product or service to "wants" is completely different than selling to clients' needs!

Pipeline or Parking Lot? Part II - Read more...
A pipeline for sales is merely a list of potential purchases or projects that may come to fruition. Most include some probability (5% - 95%) of turning into realized revenue with an expected close date. Not every company keeps a pipeline of projects but they should. The mental energy required to "remember" every opportunity can lead to unnecessary stress and ball-dropping.

Sales Pipeline or Parking Lot? - Read more...
Projects in the sales pipeline should be moving just like water flows in a pipeline. A sales pipeline is a list of sales opportunities or projects. If an object got stuck in your pipes at home causing restricted flow, what would you do?

Planning and the Honey Badger - Read more...
"Honey badger don't care!" Hopefully you've seen the funny Youtube video about the nasty honey badger. Good salespeople are like honey badgers. They don't fear anything. Talking with decision makers, closing big sales, getting a no and making cold calls are tiny speed bumps on the way to conquering the next sale. But maybe you don't have the thick skin of a honey badger or claws that can tear a lion apart. What's the secret to eliminating fear in sales and business in general?

Opportunity Management - Read more...
Last time, I mentioned a young boy at the Sonoma County Fair who asked "Would you like to get one?" in order to sell me a custom tee shirt. While I admire his closing skills at such a young age, I'm frustrated with experienced salespeople who think this is the ONLY question they should ask on sales calls.

Artistry and Selling - Read more...
I attended the Sonoma County Fair in June with my girlfriend to listen to some oldy-but-goody rock bands and happened upon an airbrush artist with his 2 boys painting t-shirts with spectacular designs and lettering. We saw how his designs emerged from the air brush in total effortlessness. Also impressive were his well-behaved young boys that spoke to customers and answered questions. When one of the boys looked me right in the eyes and asked me "Would you like to get one?" I felt I could only say yes.

Selling Isn’t Debate: Confessions of an Engineer in Sales - Read more...
I used to be an engineer and then I transferred into sales in 1988. I’m guessing you’ve heard jokes about engineers in sales.

Emailing Isn't Selling - Read more...
It's become such an epidemic with my clients that I'm using every medium possible to get the message out to my clients. Don't try to sell using email!

You're Fired? - Read more...
Terminating a salesperson is one of the most emotional topics I discuss with business owners. I always try to calm the owner down since emotional HR decisions are usually regrettable decisions. A lucid and detached manager will make better decisions about 99% of the time. Over the years, I've found that the salesperson in question almost always falls into one of two categories:

Consistency - Read more...
Most people think that good sales technique is based on one's ability to adapt their product offering to the wants and needs of their prospect. That is not correct. The job of the salesperson is to identify prospects that have problems that our existing product or service consistently fixes.

Education vs. Negotiation - Read more...
Most salespeople I encounter work under the misconception that educating a single prospect is an important way to develop trust and convince prospects to buy. Expert negotiators know what many salespeople misunderstand: The more information you give the other side, the weaker your negotiating position becomes.

The Secret to Sales - Read more...
I run into a lot of friends and casual acquaintances that ask "So Chip...What is the secret to sales?" with the belief that my answer can somehow be shared in 30 seconds or less. I usually brush them off as politely as possible or inquire as to why they might be interested. As most of you know, advanced sales skills take months or even years to master so I have to be careful not to be offended by their innocent question insinuating that sales mastery can be summed up in just a few words.

Helping Isn't Selling - Read more...
As children, we were all taught to be wary of strangers who offered us candy or a ride home from school. We have been trained for decades to be wary of assistance from strangers. "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" and its variants (no offense intended to Greeks) is a well known concept in society. Yet I hear salespeople exclaim, "we can help you" or "our firm helps..." every day as if they assume their prospects don't know the same basic rules of safety.

Social Media and Sales - Read more...
I'm asked constantly about the usefulness of all the social media (SM) tools available now to promote sales. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are just a handful of the methods available today and the list keeps growing. Here are some of the keys I've used and seen others use to maximize their sales with social media.

Start With a List - Read more...
In 2001 I was at risk of going out of business. The dot com bubble was bursting and companies no longer had money set aside for training. My random networking and cold calling wasn't paying off and I was beginning to question my sales abilities and the viability of this business.

Planning - Read more...
Prospecting plans are more than a necessary part of a salesperson's tool kit. The planning process creates accountability and a sense of teamwork for salespeople. Good plans also improve the salesperson's outlook and motivation. By measuring the results of a plan, salespeople can identify what's working and what isn't and adjust accordingly.

Risk Taking in Sales - Read more...
I recently attended a luncheon for alumni of Raychem Corporation (my previous employer 10 years ag) to catch up with old friends and hear a presentation about how many of my colleagues at Raychem had gone on to become CEO's. A survey was conducted with all these CEO's and the data was impressive. Approximately 140 people had become CEO's of at least 1 company. One common theme emerged from their survey responses and comments: Almost every CEO's stated the importance of having worked in a company culture that encouraged risk taking.

Simplified Sales Forecasts - Read more...
Learning to accurately forecast sales is a sophisticated process, critical for firms that must allocate manpower or resources to satisfy customers. So you can imagine my frustration when I meet a new client whose sales force has been arbitrarily assigning "percentages" to each account in their pipeline and then wondering why the team misses their own forecast.

Building an Effective Sales Culture - Read more...
The sophistication of language and culture are highly related. Eskimos have several words for "snow" to depict the substance they have become so familiar with. If you've watched curling on the Olympics, you've heard English speaking participants use terms and phrases like sweeping, burning, skip, rocks, hammers, draws, and biters. I know the common definitions of these words but I'm still trying to figure them out in curling!

Undermining Beliefs - Read more...
Geoff Colvin, author of Talent is Overrated explains how beliefs, practice and time in an endeavor overrides any innate talent advantage. He concludes that these are the true determinants of success in every profession. Malcolm Gladwell's research in his book Outliers further supports this. If you were fortunate enough to have parents say that you can do anything you set your mind to, the empirical evidence indicates they were right!

Selling vs. Negotiating II - Read more...
Tim Dayonot from the Haas School of Business recently gave an excellent talk on negotiation. We had a chance to speak briefly before his presentation and we quickly agreed that selling is done before negotiation begins and that the two processes are essentially separate. Of course, proper selling done up-front reduces the need for extensive gut-wrenching negotiation later.

Customer Arbitrage - Read more...
John Keagy, CEO of GoGrid, spoke as a panelist at the Association for Corporate Growth a while back. When asked what metrics were most important for a CEO to know, he explained the single most important metric was his cost of sales. Nothing else was even close.

Making the Calls - Read more...
Everyone knows to stay focused on sales and new customer acquisition these days. But I hear lots of problems with execution. "We got sidetracked." "We haven't had time this week." "An emergency came up."

Dealing with Budget - Read more...
It seems like every salesperson I run into lately asks me how to handle budget objections. Creating a sense of value with your customer is indeed an art form, but here are a few tips to help you tighten up your discussion about money.

Why Salespeople Fail (The Real Reason) - Read more...
I've had the good fortune to work with about 1000 different salespeople over the last 9 years. And it's become crystal clear to me why the vast majority of people fail in business development, sales and even business ownership. Are you ready?

Secret Characteristics - Read more...
In a perfect world, salespeople would only spend time talking to prospects that had problems their company could solve. More prospects would become customers and the selling process would be more efficient. Your ideal prospects have secret characteristics that can be correlated to a greater likelihood they will buy from you.

OK - Not OK - Read more...
The ABA Journal has a wonderful article about the legendary Texas lawyer, "Racehorse" Haynes. He accidentally stepped on a spittoon in his very first jury trial and fell to the floor in front of the judge and jury. After his client was later acquitted, he reasoned that it may have been because the jury felt sorry for the defendant being represented by such an inept attorney. So on his second trial, he stepped on the spittoon and fell again, only this time on purpose.

It's the Economy? - Read more...
OK, I've had it. I'm overwhelmed with the incredibly bad economic news and the wallowing stock market. I admit it can be tough when you are surrounded every day with negativity about your business opportunities. So let me go "on the record" with what I've been telling all my clients for the past 6 months.

Selling vs. Negotiating - Read more...
I'm often surprised by company executives that request negotiation training. They mistakenly believe that their salespeople SHOULD be negotiating, which in layman's terms is lowering price or offering some concession in exchange for a promise to buy.