Hey Everyone,

First right answer will receive a 1 hour free sales coaching session (value $300 dollars)! What incredibly rich inventor (in fact one of the riches men in Britain) said:

Faced with the dreaded pricing objection? Here are some of my favorite and most effective responses. If you have other ideas that work please post a comment. It would be great to know what works for you.

Responses as questions:

• How much too high is it?
• I guess that means we are never going ahead?
• Is price your only consideration?
• Are you making the decision based only on price?
• Sounds like you have seen something in the market at a better price?
• I appreciate your honesty. What does too high mean?
• How much did you want to pay?
• Does knowing we are not the lowest mean there is never a chance we can do business together?

Responses as statements

• Sounds like you
  

Recently I have had a number of clients ask me about common mistakes sales people make and what to do instead. Here is another big one (although not as big as forgetting to find new clients everyday!)

Lack of preparation! This is a common reasons why sales reps fail. If you are doing a good job keeping the funnel full – please review the previous entry - failure to plan almost always results in a less than desirable result. Planning your meetings, demonstrations, and follow up is critical to ensuring that you understand your customer

The failure to find and cultivate new customers is a death sentence in sales yet I see 80% of sales people refusing to do the legwork, networking and personal marketing required to find new customers everyday. Customer attrition and losing business to the competition is a frustrating inevitability in sales. You can’t close everyone. Businesses move, people move, economies shift, and people decide to do business with others. Sometimes, your prospects have friends that compete with you. You can count on losing prospects and customers even if you think you are doing everything right!

Most companies don’t have a sales problem, they have a prospecting problem. If you are counting on your current prospects and customers to bring in your revenue forever, you will most assuredly be disappointed. Sadly, the most common trend I see with sales people is that a phenomenal sales month is followed by a disaster because, prospecting was neglected as sales were coming in.

The sad reality I see is that most sales reps do not feel the full force of customer attrition and lost new business until it is too late to save the month. Even worse, they suffer for a long time until they refill the pipeline. I want to see you make a consistently high revenue, month after month, year after year. You can do that b y committing to a specific time every day to prospect. Block it in your calendar and close your office door. Be sure to attend networking events, make your calls, solicit referrals, make good notes, use a customer database set reminders, and complete your followup!

Dedicated to increasing your sales,

Colleen

My friend Lisa is a coach in Vancouver BC and this week her column featured sales advice that I thought was worth reprinting for you

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