Sales Tips   

With the Holidays behind us I thought over the next two or three weeks, I would share with you some things to either brush up on or just to keep in mind.

The first of those is your inventory.  The process of knowing and keeping track of your inventory is not just a once a month occurrence but rather something that should be done on a continual basis.  I would like to share with you a story that best illustrates why knowing your inventory is so vital especially at this time of year, when what you have in stock can change day-to-day, hour-to-ho...Read More

In case you have not noticed, we live in a world that is much different from the one our parents live in.  For that matter, the world we live in now is completely different than it was even five to ten years ago.  I heard a news report recently about how fewer and fewer people are reading the newspaper these days and that the average age of a person that does read a newspaper on a daily basis is 55.  The primary reason given for the decline in newspaper readership was access to the Internet and twenty-four hour news channels.

When we talk about providing high quality customer service, we automatically assume that the customer will be willing to accept our efforts.  While this is usually the case, there are exceptions to the rule.

I have a friend whose refrigerator went out a few weeks ago and they began to call numerous repairman to see if they could do anything.  The first person came out and after two minutes said there was nothing he could do and that the compressor was shot.  He said the compressor was under warranty but it could take up to three weeks to get it fixed....Read More

Today I would like to take a moment and talk about moments, those moments that make up what we call life.  As I continue to grow older, no jokes here, I believe more and more that life is made up of all kinds of different moments or occasions.  Our family has had a couple of weddings in the not too distant past, as I was sitting there, it dawned on me that this is what life should be about.  My entire family was there having a good time and all of our day-to-day troubles were millions of miles away.

We have talked numerous times in the past about customer services and the standards for which we should be striving.  There is never a time when customer service standards should be compromised or sacrificed for something else.  I am not going to spend time going over the standards of customer service but what I do want to do is emphasize the importance of those standards in today’s world.

Take a minute and look around at what is happening.  People ar...Read More

Sometimes we spend so much time talking about different techniques and tools that we should be using we forget the most fundamental ideas.  The most basic of those ideas is simply the first lesson we ever learned in Kindergarten.  The Golden Rule: treat others the way you would like to be treated.

I had an experience over a three-day period a while back that annoyed me and I would like to share that experience with you.  I was at a friend’s house for a barbecue a couple of weeks back and there was a number of peop...Read More

In the spirit of football being in full swing, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the art of thinking and adjusting on the fly.  Football coaches spend twenty-three hours a day thinking about every possible thing a defense could do to their offense and vice versa.  Then they start thinking about the adjustments they are going to make based on what they see.  Finally, once the game begins, they are still making adjustments.  Half to half, quarter to quarter and play-to-play.

I would like to take this opportunity to re-visit the art of recognizing and acting on buying signs.  We all have a good idea of what a buying sign entails but for our purposes, we will define it as when a customer gives you a sign that they are ready to buy.  It could be something like the customer saying, “When can you deliver” or something a little more subtle like, “I really like it but?”  Both of these statements should be immediate cues to the professional salesperson that the customer is ready to buy.

We have spent the last few weeks talking about mystery shopping at its most basic point, simply the idea of going out and shopping your competitors on your own.  However, there are some more advance principles in mystery shopping that I would like to touch on.

One of the most common practices that businesses use, particularly larger ones, is a professional mystery shopper.  They are exactly what they sound like, shoppers hired by a competitor of yours to shop in your store and report their results.  The professional ...Read More

Last time we started talking about mystery shopping and the benefits of doing it.  We also discussed the type of information that you will probably obtain by taking advantage of this tool and today I want to continue by examining what to do with all of that information.  There is nothing more valuable than data and information if one knows what to do with it and information can be useless if not used correctly.

Chances are, no matter how great your business is that there is someone doing something better than you are and this is where we go back to the idea of...Read More

We have talked time and again about the importance of taking advantage of every tool and every edge that you can find in the sales business.  We discussed the importance of being prepared and preparing for everyday and we have talked about how effective it can be to use daily events to increase your customer base.  The common thread through all of this is the importance of leaving no stone unturned and to be able to access and use every tool at your disposal.

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Do you ever have a bad day?  Of course you do, we all do.  Maybe you had an argument with your spouse, the kids are in trouble at school and you just found out about an unexpected expense or you just woke up in a lousy mood.  Whatever the reason, it is naïve to believe that anyone can be in a great mood and on top of his or her game every single day.  However, that is what I am going to ask of you.

As we all know, the sales...Read More