“The Specialist” Sales and Management Training Blog

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Hi everybody,

I hope you had a nice weekend! Tonight’s post is going to be on ‘Bashing Your Competition’.

“The Specialist” never condones or recommends this technique.

Now there are some things that you must be aware of. First, when you point your finger at someone else there are always three more pointing directly at YOU! If you bad mouth one of your competitors you are showing your prospect that you will talk behind some one’s back, a trait that is not admirable. If you will do that to a business competitor then you will surely do that to another human being. The prospect will realize you are not trustworthy.

Secondly, there are several prospects that will deliberately talk bad about their current association just to test you. DON’T fall for it! What “The Specialist” recommends is that you frame your response with something like this…I understand your point and I agree with you, that really isn’t their specialty, however what makes our company or product so special is that we DO specialize in exactly what you need. Notice I didn’t pile on with any bad comments, I simply agreed with their assessment.

Try it and you will win more friends and close more sales!

“The Specialist”

Hello everyone,

I hope you have been enjoying the new format for our posts as well as the new additions on our strangeratthedoor.com website. From the response, I feel very gratified so many of you have signed up for our FREE newsletter and the e-mails I have been getting show me that you are enjoying the radio show.

Thanks again to all of you, without you none of this would be possible. Now to the post for tonight. I have seen many sales persons get into a very bad habit of dropping the price they intend to charge the customer so they can get the sale. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this IF and I really mean IF you find it necessary. “The Specialist” does not like doing this. First off, you lose a tremendous amount of control in the sale.

Secondly, how do you explain your obvious lack of sincerity now that you are not giving the customer the best price you should have given him in the first place? Instead of telling you the best way to handle this very awkward position you have found yourself in I would rather see what you the readers come up with and tell me all the different techniques you have come up with. After your input “The Specialist” will give you the ultimate way of handling this situation.

I leave you tonight with an interesting challenge…What say you?

Hi everybody,

I have another good but simple one for you tonight.

I will almost be willing to guarantee you that 90% of all sales people, maybe even higher, have NOT read in it’s entirety the paperwork they are asking their customers to sign! I personally have seen deal after deal lost by unprepared salespersons when by chance the customer glances at the paperwork and their eyes just happen to land on a specific paragraph and the salesperson has no clue what it means. Sometimes the salesperson is lucky and they can BS their way past it, others are not so fortunate.

A professional salesperson is prepared.

When I mention in earlier posts about “Product Knowledge”, I am not just limiting myself to the product. You must remember that you have worked very hard to gain a rapport and then you have given a tremendous presentation, why would you let something at the very end blow the sale?

The reason is simple…It’s boring and you don’t think it’s an important part of the sale. I assure you it is a very important part of the sale! In sales you have plenty of down time in between sales, it is during that time that you should make a point to read every word of the paperwork and if you don’t understand what some of it means ask your manager.

If it makes you one extra sale a year by being informed and not being caught off guard then you just gave yourself a raise!

“The Specialist”

Hi everybody,

Tonight I would like to show how all of you young and intermediate sales persons can go to the next step in becoming a true sales professional. Everyone knows you must have a great deal of product knowledge to become a good sales professional. The one thing that separates…

click here to read the entire post…

That’s an interesting title.

Hi everybody! Lets talk about the three-legged sale. First you ask, what is it? Well those of you that are in sales have missed many opportunities to close a sale because that extra person or persons that came along with your prospect just has to throw in their two cents worth. The beginner will try to sell all three or four people and end up with none of them simply because their lack of experience has not allowed them to be proficient at controlling groups of people. I hear all of you veterans out there grinning because you think you know how to do it. Conventional wisdom tells you that if you can sell the leader you will sell the rest of them. That works SOMETIMES. What do you do if the leader isn’t interested in your product or already has something similar? Aha! Now comes the real artist.

“The Specialist” does not put himself in the position of hoping the leader wants the deal. Instead, what I do is find out is who the leader is and regardless of his interest level I make sure he becomes my new best friend. Now, either way I win! If he likes the product he will influence his friends to go along as well. That’s the easy situation. Where it gets complex is if the leader does not have an interest in your product regardless of the reason. If he has become my new best friend the effect will be exactly the same! He will influence the crowd on your behalf, just for a different reason.

So as you progress in your sales career start seeing more then just the sale. Again, go back to basics and practice closing everyone all the time. In other words, start making yourself a more likeable person by pointing out the good in others and building other’s self esteem. If you work on this concept you will find that making the sale will become secondary and you will feel much more rewarded in your career because besides having more sales then you can count, you will also feel a lot better about yourself. Isn’t that what a career should be about anyway, personal growth? I will be anxious to hear your responses.

“The Specialist”

Hello kind readers,

Another day and another post. I love spending time with you! Remember, only 7 days until the “Big Announcement”!

On today’s post I was inspired by someone, actually two people, that I have had some influence in their sales career. One of the sales persons was having a little difficulty and so decided to go watch the other salesperson work. After watching for a couple of hours the first salesperson proceeded to go out and make THREE sales! When I met with him later he informed me that what he had learned was Patience WITH Persistence! An amazing analysis. I thought I would elaborate on it a little.

What the salesperson meant was that he had always heard cliches like “persistence beats resistance”. Well true, this is a perfect example of a non-qualified trainer repeating cute one liners and not really explaining what they mean or at best not elaborating or demonstrating HOW to persist to beat resistance! This is one of the MAIN reasons I do this blog. I hate to see people lose valuable time in their development by mis-information.

Salesperson #2 did not only Himself a great service but also a great thing for our industry. Not only did He tell the salesperson HOW to use Patience WITH Persistence, but also spent time with Him demonstrating it! Kudos to you SIR! And I know who you are! Thank you for being a great ambassador for our industry!

“The Specialist”

Hi everybody,

It’s Saturday and I have a valuable but brief “Sales Tip of the Day”.

When you are wrapping up the sale and you are going for the signature on the sales agreement, always HAND the pen in a writing position to the potential customer. I have seen so many sales persons go over the sales agreement only to lay the pen down in front of the customer. WRONG!

When you do this it is very easy for the customer to pick up the sales agreement and go through a lengthy review of everything that you have already discussed. Sometimes they NEVER pick up the pen and consummate the deal. When you hand them the pen in a writing position it is only natural for them to write with it. Of course since the sales agreement, as earlier explained in a past post, is only a formality then you should make it as easy as possible for the prospect to complete the FORMALITY!

Very shortly I have a very special announcement to make so stay tuned. It will be the biggest event that has occurred on this blog since it’s inception. SORRY, NO CLUES!

“The Specialist”

Hello kind readers,

It’s me again.

Now, all of my readers know by now that I am not a big fan of “closes”, especially taken out of context. Everyone knows how I feel. You should be closing continuously from the time you meet someone, forever.

Now I am going to elaborate and incorporate a style in the process of continuously closing… “The Assumptive Close”.

Quite the contrary to popular belief, the assumptive close is not just about assuming the sale and going for the paperwork. That is a small part of it. The real art of the assumptive close is to make EVERY WORD in your small talk and presentation imply that the sale is already done and that you are just discussing formalities. It is all about attitude.

I had the opportunity to call on a potential client the other day and truly it wasn’t whether they were going to do it but whether I had enough time in my busy schedule to accommodate them! I have mentioned before that sales professionals often invite me to make a sale with them and I thoroughly enjoy the occasional interaction. Well, on this particular occasion the prospect told me within minutes that they were shopping the product and I was lucky to come at this particular time. I did not take the bait! Quite the contrary. I politely informed them that since our company was the largest with the lowest rates that we really didn’t participate in that kind of business but I would certainly try and help them if I could. They then proceeded to tell me that I could take the information and come back at another time with the proposal. Again “The Specialist” didn’t take the bait. I assured the potential client that I could take care of everything in a few minutes IF I could help them. I then proceeded to present my proposal and informed them of what I expected of them, in fact I made a list of what I would need in order to make it happen for them.

The sale was done. There was really nothing else to talk about except small talk. Everything I did and said during that sales call was from beginning to end an assumptive closing technique! If you noticed the sale was closed and I hadn’t done any paperwork! In fact to show how powerful this technique is I informed them I didn’t have time to finish but I would TRY and come back the next day. Well needless to say before I ate breakfast the next morning they were calling me to see what time I was coming back and could I squeeze them in that day so they could enjoy the benefits of their product.

I don’t think I need to go any further! It is all about attitude! To be able to pull this off you really have to be a master of assuming you have made the sale the minute you meet the people, and every word you say has to be pointed in that direction all the way through. That customer knew from my attitude that they would be doing business with “The Specialist”.

Again this is just one technique in our wonderful profession.

“The Specialist”

Hi everybody,

I hope everyone had a nice Easter.

As usual I was given the opportunity to watch an up and coming young salesperson when I noticed she was leaving out something very important in a sales presentation of any kind. When you are giving your presentation and someone makes a positive comment it is imperative that you repeat what the prospect says in a different way so that he can hear it himself!

For an example…Lets say that you were showing this prospect a television and you showed them a unique feature involving the graphics and the prospect comments by saying something like, wow, those are great graphics! It is very naive for you to just keep continuing with the rest of you presentation. What you are really doing by ignoring his comment is first, you are talking AT the prospect and not WITH him.

Secondly, you are missing a golden opportunity to reinforce a positive in your presentation. Back to the example. If the prospect had said wow, those are great graphics!, I would have reinforced his statement by adding something like, “I know what you mean John, everybody comments on these graphics, they really love them! It doesn’t have to be exactly like that but the positive statement has to be reinforced! A negative comment is something that I get off of as soon as possible, and try and find quickly the next positive thing to mention.

By the way don’t forget to be nodding your head when you are reinforcing the prospects statement.

“The Specialist”