I often see sales reps who are "quoting machines." At every opportunity they prepare price quotes for prospects, thinking that they have hot opportunities. Actually what they are doing is positioning themselves as a common vendor that is selling on price, and opening themselves up to getting into a game where the prospect will try [...]

Here’s the group from Award Solutions that I presented a Smart Calling workshop to in Dallas last week. It was Ben Des Rosiers’ birthday (middle), so of course we had cake! Award provides technical training in the wireless industry. Great group!

I was interviewed by Phil Dobbie on his BTalk podcast on BNet Australia and shared my Five Dumb Sales questions that you need to avoid. Listen to find out if any of these sound familiar. You can listen here.

Here’s an interesting article from the Software Advice blog, "Why Won’t Anyone Return My !*#@$% Call?",  pointing out the fact that many buyers do their research prior to speaking with sales reps, and are quite knowledgeable about products and services. As the author, Don Fornes, says, it’s wise to be well-represented in the places where [...]

Yesterday and today I’m working with a great group of reps at Thomson Reuters Tax and Accounting Creative Solutions. I’ve been coming here to Ann Arbor, MI, for over 10 years now to deliver training, and this company, like LexisNexis below, is a sales organization that really "gets it" regarding telesales. We have mostly newer [...]

Last week I was in Dayton, Ohio to work with the newest sales pros at LexisNexis. Here are the reps who are handling new business acquistion (Smart Calling) and some who are responsible for retention of existing contracts.

I always laugh at someone’s comment when I hear them say, "You can’t sell that by phone." It’s ignorant.
Here’s yet another example of someone doing what others have said can’t be done: selling homes and barns by phone. Sand Creek Post and Beam last year made INC Magazines’s 2009 Top 500 List of fastest growing [...]

As if I didn’t have enough to keep me busy, I’ve officially gotten into Facebook. I promise not to use it to tell you what I had for breakfast (energy bar) or what I’m wearing (workout clothes). No, all of my speaker/trainer/author friends and gurus say that Facebook is an essential element of the social [...]

I was interviewed on Phil Dobbie’s BTalk show on BNET Australia, sharing "Five Successful Tips for Cold Calling." Hear the 20-minute interview.
Of course I quickly pointed out that the call should not be cold, but Smart, as I shared material from my soon-to-be-released book,  Smart Calling™
Phil is a fun guy with a great sense of [...]

During the past 27+ years I’ve worked with companies selling lots of products and services, some very conventional such as software, office supplies, subscriptions of all types, and more. And then there are those products and services that you might not typically think about as being your typical sold-by-phone items: breast pumps, catheters, condoms, adult [...]