Last night I was watching The Apprentice and I got thinking about when you should and you shouldn’t take on business and when you should and you shouldn't turn down business. On my travels as a sales motivational speaker I see a lot of salespeople, business owners and entrepreneurs who take on business that they should have never taken on. Business that is unprofitable. Business that is unpalatable. Business that is unmanageable. And most importantly, business that is unprofitable. When I ask about this people say things like, “Well, … [Read more...]
How To Qualify Clients In A Win Win Way
September 29, 2007 By 1 Comment
Gavin, you recently wrote an article Selling Pies Should Be Easy and you talked about not throwing up obstacles that make it difficult for our clients to buy from us. I totally agree with this however in our business there are various criteria that we need to meet that, from the customers point of view, are often seen as obstacles. To be honest, the customer feels it just isn't their problem. As you say, as a salesman I need to "smooth" this process and act as a go between "fluffing up" the … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice: Sales training tips from the hit TV show, Part II
April 4, 2007 By 1 Comment
I know what the problem with The Apprentice is! I do! There are too many people keeping their heads down in the opening rounds. There were 15 people “competing” last night and I still don’t know most of them. How many can you put a name to? I can name about 6 I think… Rory, Tre, Jadine, Kate, Ifti and Ghazal. Anyway, I think we always knew that Tre and Jadine would be “back for more” tonight but our star newcomer to the affray, and that’s the only word I can think of to describe the (nearly all) … [Read more...]
