Qualifying

What do you do when a buyer or a prospective buyer says something aggressive or confrontational? Forget about right and wrong. Forget about whose fault it is or isn’t. That’s not an effective way to communicate with the buyer. Fall back! Find something you can take ownership of and own it!

Your job is to set yourself apart from the competition. If you’re selling in the traditional way, by emphasizing features and benefits, the only thing setting you apart is the company name on your business card – and maybe your winning smile. Let’s face it though, you need more than that!

Mike Montague interviews Brian Jackson on How to Succeed at Your 30 Second Commercial. Brian is an award-winning Sandler Trainer in San Diego, CA.

How many leads does your sales team need to generate in order to create one sale?

Thanks to the global pandemic, salespeople across the country and around the world are now coming to terms with a sobering reality.

Stan was frustrated. He kept getting “shot down on price” during discussions with prospective buyers. He knew he was supposed to talk directly about money issues before making a presentation ...

Marina was having some problems with the opening phases of her sales process. Her early discussions with prospects were rarely productive. She sat down with Fred, her manager, and did some role-playing in the hope of improving her interviewing technique. During the role-play session, Fred shared a strategy Marina hadn't heard of. He called it “stripping line.”

Troy Elmore, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful at dealing with the competition and selling a crowded marketplace. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 21 Minutes

Ryan, a salesperson in his mid-thirties, had hit a performance plateau. His commissions had been flat for the past six months, and he had narrowly missed quota in each of those months. He scheduled a meeting with his manager, Jeannine, to see if, working together, they could identify any steps that would turn this pattern around.

By focusing more attention on prospects who are truly qualified, and less time chasing people who were unwilling to share information, Brian was able to produce significantly more income...

Do a Reality Check on Your Sales Forecast - If inactive prospects have snuck into your pipeline, now is the best time to clean them out. Remember – only active, qualified prospects who are currently in discussion with you, and moving through the sales process, should form the basis of your sales forecasts.

Having a big pipeline of “prospects” is typically seen as desirable. The more prospects you put into the pipeline, the more will eventually emerge as customers. At least that’s the theory. And the theory is partially true. Some of the people you put in the pipeline will become customers. The question is, “How many will be customers and how long will it take for them to materialize from the other end of the pipe?”

You probably have had experiences with prospects who are perpetually “looking into” or “thinking about” something … but who rarely (or never) take action on those things. Learn how to turn the "language of delay" into the "language of commitment" and close more sales.

By spending more time getting "no's" from prospects, our salespeople actually increased the time spent in conversations with qualified prospects. Read about how one sales manager helped a struggling sales rep get off of probation and have her best year ever.

At Sandler Training, we believe in not solely talking about features and benefits during your sales call, but rather focusing on the prospect’s needs. However, there is a time for presenting, once you have qualified the opportunity. Once a prospect is fully qualified in Pain, Budget, and Decision, then it is time for you to make the presentation, and you want to make that presentation as persuasive as possible.

If your goal is to find more prospects, get more and better referrals, and make more commission dollars in 2016 than you did in 2015, consider upping your social selling game. Here are four quick tips that will help you to avoid some common mistakes online.

Creating an effective sales pipeline can be a massive headache for sales leaders because reps have been known to stuff the pipeline with opportunities that have zero chance of closing. In a previous life, I took over a product specialist role selling a web-based media monitoring and crisis communications program. My first six weeks in that role was spent culling a $3 million pipeline down to $160,000 of real, qualified opportunities

Does this sound familiar to you? Prospect A says, "This looks very good. I think there's an excellent chance we'll do business." The salesperson thinks, "I've got one." Prospect B comments, "Your price is higher than we expected." The salesperson thinks, "I'll have to cut the price to close the deal." Prospect C reveals, "We were hoping for a shorter delivery time." The salesperson thinks, "I'll have to push this through as a rush order to get the sale."e

Salespeople spend too much time on prospects that will never buy. Stop this bad sales behavior by uncovering if they have the need.