There’s a marketing struggle for survival going on amongst the traditional, generally hard sell marketers. They are finding it harder to grab people’s attention and offer something new and exciting. The latest hard sell ad is a television commercial in which a discount fashion store chain shows friends conducting an intervention to save another friend from over spending on the fashions she could get for less at Marshalls / TJ Maxx. This attitude shows disrespect for customers’ judgment.
You may feel that I am making a big deal out of nothing; it’s simply advertising and a humorous effort at that. In this case, I disagree. The Marshalls / TJ Maxx TV commercial shows an attitude that is prevalent in hard sell sales and marketing: I have the right to decide for you that you need to buy my product. Because I know better than you do, I can use guilt, pressure or other manipulations to control your [...]
There’s more to life than money alone. I know that sounds shocking from someone who trains people to sell and who considers himself a businessman. Nevertheless, for most of us, it’s true. And from my experience working with small business owners, I find that most of them have a passion for what they do. Naturally, we all want to make lots of money and be able to have the freedom and possessions it brings.
In both my experience and reading, I find that most of us work to make a living to do the things that are important to us. The rare ones among us do the work out of love for the job itself. In my case, I sell for the love of it. I do sales training because it gives me even greater pleasure. So, sell for the love of it! Personally, I want the fullness of job satisfaction too. I love selling for the fun, fulfillment and mutual rewards I get from heart-centered, soft sell sales and [...]
This past Sunday, I read the draft of my ebook, Building Trust through Questions, to my writers’ group. Despite the variety of their work experience, several members stressed that in my efforts to emphasize the importance of questions, I shouldn’t forget that the salesperson needs to know his product and the company needs good customer service. Don’t forget the facts.
They are right, of course. Successful salespeople grab all the product training they can get. They ask questions to really understand how the products and services work and why they are important to your customers. They don’t forget the facts. Soft sell sales isn’t just about the customer’s situation, which you must understand before doing any selling. It’s also about helping him or her to solve a problem or fulfill a desire. That means you need to know first about your products and services and secondly about the benefits they deliver so that you can, in fact, be a trusted [...]
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There are so many books and courses available today that figuring out which are good is daunting. I personally rely on people whose advice I’ve learned to trust to help me avoid wasting money and to point me towards wise investments. This page enables me to list books, [...]
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