So, it’s week 10 of The Sales Apprentice and we’re down to six; Natasha, Suzy and Jim facing off against Helen, Tom and Melody. Just looking at the last six I was left feeling pretty uninspired. They are none of them without their shortcomings and I don’t think I would be investing £250k into any of them from what I’ve seen and that’s before we see them torn limb from limb in the interviews and hear what crackpot business ideas they might have... And I wasn’t that inspired by tonight’s task either! I have to admit that I … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice 2011: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 10
July 6, 2011 By 7 Comments
Talking Sales Success Summit
March 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Have you checked out the Talking Sales Success Summit yet? Over two days I will be interviewing 10 experts on what separates sales superstars from sales dreamers and sales rockstars from sales losers. During 10 hours of pure sales training gold I will be seeking to discover secret sales strategies, little known selling tactics and proven techniques that you can use right away to make more sales. And you’ll be pleased to know that I have hand-picked these experts not because of the books they’ve written (although many of them have) nor … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part III
April 8, 2009 By 10 Comments
Week 3, the car, circa 6am and the boys were talking. Ben, he of “to me making money is better than sex”, was pumped up and ready for the third task, “I’m not nervous, whoever is up against me, their arseholes are going to be twitching like rabbits’ noses”. Sir Alan had called the candidates to the new athletic complex at Lee Valley, the elite Olympic training ground East of London, “Here we are at Lee Valley athletics centre... fitness is big business... people can hardly afford to pay for a membership at those fancy gyms, … [Read more...]
7 Tips For Selling In An Economic Downturn
September 19, 2008 By 17 Comments
It's hard to look at this week and to not worry about the impact that current events might have on sales. Many of you may be reading this and thinking, "They already have". Every media outlet, every paper, every radio station and (seemingly) everybody is talking about events. Even people whom I have never heard talk about economics or the economy have had something to say - usually negative! I was listening to the radio on the way home from my Close the Sale seminar last night and they spoke to someone who said that he was going to put his … [Read more...]
How To Upsell And Cross-Sell To Achieve Rapid Sales Growth
January 25, 2008 By 9 Comments
January has been a busy month of sales seminars, sales training and motivational speeches so I hadn’t had any time to think what I was going to write about this week until about half an hour ago… I was sat at my PC in my home office, tidying up some emails when one of my good friends called. It’s been a while since I have spoken to him so I was delighted to hear from him. After a quick catch up we quickly focused our attentions onto setting the world to rights! He said that he has something he thought I would be interested … [Read more...]
Should I Only Be Cold Calling Prospects I Convert Most Easily?
November 2, 2007 By 1 Comment
Hi Gavin, I am wondering if you could help me with a problem I currently have. I work for a web development company. We supply our services to designers and web design agencies. In recent weeks I have been calling a list of graphic designers and a list of web designers. For the graphic designers I normally seem to get an appointment from 1 call in 10 (ish), however for the web developers/agencies it seems to be 1 in 25. I have two questions, firstly, do you think it is worthwhile to contact web agencies where their objections … [Read more...]
Tips For Negotiating In The Toughest Of Negotiation Scenarios
October 13, 2007 By Leave a Comment
How to negotiate like a sales superstar when it seems you can only fail… As with all of my sales training tips and sales strategies it´s important that you know how to apply tactics in the real world. Here is a negotiation question that has been asked of me several times and in several different guises:- Gavin. I´ve got a client who is already using us. He is using one product list value 3000 and another worth 2000. Total value 5000. He has only been paying 1500! He now wants to drop the 3000 product and continue with the … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part V
April 25, 2007 By Leave a Comment
"Now 11 remain to fight for the chance to become the Apprentice." So began this week's episode of the hit TV show which was primarily about selling and was packed to the rafters with sales training tips for the sales superstar in waiting. This week's task for our "wannabees" was to dabble in the art market selling photography. After picking 2 potential photographers each our heroes were to see who could make the most profit from art sales in one day. SAS was on top form declaring this to be "a special kind of … [Read more...]
Sales Training DVD: Power Canvassing For Confident Cold Calling
April 13, 2007 By 2 Comments
Eliminate the fear of cold calling and secure more face to face time with senior decision makers. You can probably count the number of salespeople on your teams who enjoy making cold calls on one hand. Maybe even on one finger! Yet proactive client calls and gaining new business meetings are a crucial part of winning more sales and growing your business. Even experienced sales staff must be able to ring new clients and get meetings with key decision makers, fast! After writing a recent article on the importance of controlling your attitude … [Read more...]
Sales Superstar Or Sales Stalker?
April 10, 2007 By Leave a Comment
It's 1028pm and I have, just two minutes ago, avoided a sales call from a health care sales person. 1028pm! On Thursday afternoon I flew out to Spain for a few days arriving late evening. I flew back late last night arriving about midnight. After 4 days eating tapas and relaxing today was a busy day catching up on emails, making sales calls and sorting out my latest sales training book... of which more another day! The sales scenario... I turned my mobile on this morning and I had 6 missed calls from this guy. I feel like I am … [Read more...]
