Colleen’s Blog

Price is the single most common objection encountered by salespeople, but it doesn’t have to be a deal killer. Here are five field-tested ways you can skillfully handle price objections.

Building great relationships with clients is a cornerstone of a successful career in sales. Achieving this means more than just a benefit for your customers in knowing that they can count on you for the very best in product knowledge and advice, plus after-sales support. You stand to gain as well when those satisfied customers tell their friends and colleagues about you. Referrals have a unique capability in that they have the potential to generate new clients for you without you having to seek out those clients first.

“For virtually any business, big or small, nothing creates more anxiety than revenue risk,” says Colleen Francis, founder and president of Engage Selling Solutions (www.EngageSelling.com), a North American-based sales consulting company.

“Are we going to make our numbers? What is the forecast upside? Or worse, the downside? No one likes surprises at the end of a quarter or year. Luckily, steps can be taken to reduce risk in sales and accurately predict revenue flow. When a disciplined pipeline process is applied to sales, risks can be identified quickly and mitigated so that sales targets are routinely achieved. It takes a rigorous review and mitigation process, but the results will speak for themselves.”

It’s a timeless adage that all business is personal, and yet it is overlooked by many in business today. Go back and read what people like Zig Ziglar were teaching forty years ago. He recognized, as I do, that there is immense potential in the power of goodwill and on having a personal approach.

Among the many lessons we can learn from Oersted, his story teaches us that it pays to work a little harder, and that we can learn a lot about attraction simply by taking the time to notice the world around us. In the sales profession, that means taking a good look at your existing and new clients and asking questions, such as: “What is it that attracts more clients in less time, and how can I fine-tune the way I achieve this in my own organization?”

Want to improve your sales performance? Be nice to people. On impulse, it’s an easy thing to do, but being really good at it means you have to keep an eye on what you do on a regular basis. Here are three ways you can attain the good karma of being nice…

I was delighted to be part of the conversation with other top thought leaders in the world of sales about how early and expansion stage companies can improve their overall sales processes. In the first of this three-part series, sales strategists Rich Chiarello, Jonathan Farrington, me! – Colleen Francis – and GuruGanesha Khalsa discuss some of the common sales pitfalls that young companies should avoid.