Archive for March, 2009
Sex Sells!
An attractive woman has a decided advantage as sales representative over her male counterpart. This “selling edge” is primarily due to the existence of the “glass ceiling” found in most business organizations today. The glass ceiling women are still arbitrarily held back from leadership positions means that there are many more men in decisionmaking positions in businesses than women. Therefore when cold calling an attractive woman has a better chance of getting an appointment for a sales presentation than does a man. Women are also given more attention in their presentations and less resistance up to a point than a male sales representative or service industry professional account ants attorneys consultants bankers etc.. This advantage has everything to do with sex and the physical appeal of a woman. It is clear to me as a sales trainer coaching sales representatives and service industry professionals in the field that male decisionmakers often use a different part of their anatomy than their head to make their buying decisions.
The female advantage in obtaining sales opportunities is tempered however by most sales women experiencing a greater difficulty in closing sales. The male ego gets in the way of the final decision; because many men can’t allow themselves to as they see it “lose” to an attractive woman. Therefore female sales professionals need to execute a selling process that counters this knee jerk reaction experienced by many of the male prospects customers or clients they try to sell.
A selling system like the one taught in my Sales Success Strategies selfdirected learning manual http://TheSellingEdge.com/manual1.htm can help any sales woman to flip switches in a decisionmaker’s brain and easily move around the roadblock to closing her sale. I have seen research on this subject that says that an attractive women who effectively implements a stepbystep consultative selling system can achieve a 30 percent higher closing ratio than a male representative using a similar selling process.
Sex Sells!
To obtain a free Sales Myths etraining course ===> Just Click Here!
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;VIRDEN THORNTON is the founder and President of The elling Edge Inc. a firm specializing in sales customer relations and management training and development. Clients have included Sears Optical Eastman Kodak IBM Deloitte Touch Bank One Jefferson Pilot and WalHMart to name a few. Virden is the author of Prospecting: The Key To Sales Success and the best selling Building Closing the Sale FiftyMinute series books and Close That Sale a video/audio tape series published by Crisp Publications Inc. Menlo Park California. He has also authored a SelfDirected Learning series of sales coaching team development telemarketing and personal productivity training guides. To obtain a substantial discount on two of Virden’s new manuals 101 Sales Myths and Organizing For Sales Success just click on either of the titles above.
Note: You can contact Virden at virdenTheSellingEdge.com. You can also see an expanded biography at http://www.TheSellingEdge.com/bio.htm.
Selling With Status: What Salespeople Can Learn From Improv
The best salespeople are creative. They offer novel ideas that solve client problems. Their creativity is the lifeblood that brings value to sales relationships and accounts for satisfied customers and repeat business.
As a salesperson you are on the front line of business development. Take for instance a sales meeting. You have to think on your feet. You need tools to be spontaneously creative on demand. It’s not unlike being on stage at an improvisational theater improv you have to respond to what is happening and make use of it.
A sales meeting is an interaction between two or more people. Understanding the dynamics of that interaction can help you lead the meeting to a productive end for both parties.
Theater director and coach Keith Johnstone is the author of Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre a book that could be described as a handbook on human interaction. The first section of his book deals entirely with status interactions. Johnstone breaks down the dynamics of interaction between people and trains his students to use those dynamics to build improvised interaction that looks and feels genuine. His book is an exploration of the nature of spontaneous creativity.
Johnstone discovered that many staged interactions lacked reality because real interaction has a status component that influences the behaviors of the participants. Status behaviors often occur below the level of our conscious awareness but without awareness of the status of their role actors had trouble generating behavior that felt authentic to the viewer. They were flat.
Let’s look at status and its applications to selling.
Status Interactions
All human interaction has a status component to it. Here are a couple of examples related to selling:
You buy an expensive customized personal computer from a local retailer who installs software for you and adds all the features and sets everything up for you. When it arrives you discover that several things you paid for were left out. You call the retailer and complain and you make it very clear by your tone and very deliberate voice cadence that you are not happy and need to be helped. In this case you are taking a high status role in the interaction.
Another example when you walk into a clothing store and the salesperson says “Excuse me sir. Can I help you?” they are taking the lower status role. In taking on the helpful role they grant you the higher status.
Status is something over which there is often a social battle between people. In the first example imagine that the computer guy that set up the computer answers the complaint call. Now this particular techie has a very low opinion of anyone who doesn’t know technology. He won’t automatically grant you high status just because you are the customer. He’ll assume high status because he’s the one “who really knows.” Likewise the clothing salesperson is a closet artist who thinks selling is demeaning she might take high status in selling clothes because she believes it preserves her dignity. In both these situations the potential for some verbal sparring and spicy improv exists as both players vie for the higher status.
By being conscious of status we can have more effective interactions with people and prospects. Awareness of status is also helpful in setting up the circumstances for productive conversations.
Sales: Take the low or high status role?
As a salesperson you should usually take the low status role. Consider this: You’ve been granted a meeting by a potential client usually in their office. You are hoping that in some way you can provide service to them. You are going to hopefully listen and ask questions playing the role of the learner. All these indicate that the salesperson normally will take on the lower status role.
Taking the low status role is appropriate and authentic and it relaxes the high status player. The status game has been taken away. Try not to think of the low status role as pejorative. High and low status merely represent two sides of the same coin. Like inhaling and exhaling status roles are interdependent and ubiquitous.
Think of it as a dance. When stepped appropriately it makes for an efficient and smooth exchange. In a sales meeting paradoxically the low status player often leads. He or she does this by asking permission. Seek assent to move in a certain direction and the high status player is immediately comfortable. You’ve granted them veto power but they can sit back and be led by the low status expert.
Taking the lower status role offers the following benefits.
It’s like being a gourmet diner in the hands of a professional wine steward. The wine steward inquires suggests and recommends and oozes professionalism. It is very clear that the sommelier is knowledgeable professional and entirely in his element. And he is completely in service to the diner. It is the diner who makes the decision and spends the money. A real gourmet however will hand off the high status role to the sommelier for a time in order to gain access to his or her expertise.
From this perspective one of the markers of a good meeting is a status swap. If your prospect decides to take you in to meet their boss they have handed you the high status role of course it probably still makes sense to assume the low status role with the boss. Another example: let’s say towards the end of the meeting you begin to suggest all the creative and helpful ideas that occurred to you during the course of the meeting. As your client listens to your ideas and gains access to your expertise they grant you a higher status role and begin delving into your ideas so they can be educated.
Understand the purpose of taking the high status role is not to ‘be’ high status. When the client willingly steps in to the low status role it indicates that you have passed a credibility test and that they recognize your expertise. It means that you’ve earned their trust.
The bottom line with regard to status: first to be aware of it and second to take the status that is most appropriate to the context of the moment. Usually if you’re a salesperson that’s the lower status role. Then request permission to ask questions and do exactly that.
About the writer: Todd L Smith is the President CEO of ActivEngage a company which provides chat software and managed solutions to the automotive industry. Using proactive chat ActivEngage helps dealerships turn more anonymous website visitors into active leads for the dealership. Todd has over 18 years of retail automotive experience coupled with a passion for technology which has helped him to create real world processes and solutions for their dealership clients. You can reach Todd http://www.activengage.com or you follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/toddlearsmith.
Sales Management Software
Introduction
One of the most important aspects of any business is sales. Without sales there is no revenue and without revenue the company ceases to exist. This is why so many executives and managers are focused on generating the most sales possible. One of the tools they are using to do this is sales management software. Sales management software is software that can be used by employees to track and improve their sales and sales opportunities. There are many different types of sales management software available on the market today but one of the best sales management software is Prophet.
Prophet sales management software is easy to learn and easy to use.
Obviously one of the things executives and managers take into consideration before purchasing new software for their company or business is how easy the software is to learn and use. Prophet is one of the best sales management software available on the market today that meets both of these requirements. It is so easy to use that many executives and managers who were using competitor brands of sales management software have switched to Prophet sales management software simply because of this. In addition Prophet sales management software is easy to learn as most users can learn the software just by using it for a little while. However Prophet sales management software does offer a tutorial that shows all of its features quickly so employees can learn what they need to know about the sales management software even faster.
Prophet sales management software works with Outlook.
One of the most popular software programs used for email is Microsoft Outlook and like most sales management software programs Prophet works with Outlook and the information within it. Sales management software programs work with Outlook to maintain information on clients business contacts and sales opportunities. However Prophet sales management software differs from its competitors as it allows information to flow back and forth between the two programs much easier than other sales management software programs. For example with Goldmine and Act sales management software information in these programs must match the information in Outlook in order for it to be compatible but this is not the case with Prophet sales management software. In addition Prophet sales management software works with more versions of Outlook than any of its competitors.
Prophet sales management software makes adding and changing information easy.
Things are rapidly changing in todays world and nothing stays the same. It is important that companies and businesses have sales management software that is flexible and can adapt to these changes. Prophet sales management software does just that through its toolbar located in Outlook. This toolbar allows employees to change and add information with just a click of the mouse. Prophets competitors dont offer this in their sales management software. Instead employees must open up the sales management software program each time they want to make changes and manually do so. This is not only frustrating but it makes employees less efficient.
Prophet sales management software is made to be customized.
Companies and businesses arent identical thus the sales management software they use shouldnt be either. Some information that is important for one organization is not important for another thus they dont need their sales management software to track it or include it in reports. Prophet sales management software recognizes this and allows for more customization with their sales management software than any of their competitors. This way businesses and companies can get only the information they want and should they need to get different information at another time they can simply change the customization in their sales management software and access what they need.
Prophet sales management software makes sharing information with others easy.
One of the best features of Prophet sales management software is that it is designed to make sharing information with internal and external individuals very easy. Prophet sales management software is the only sales management software to offer peer to peer sharing which allows information to be easily shared and used by multiple individuals in a company or organization. This is a great feature as most employees work in a team or group and not in isolation as they might have done in the past. Sharing information with individuals outside the company or organization is also easy with Prophet sales management software. Obviously information in the Prophet sales management software program cant be sent directly to outside individuals as they dont have the sales management software. However Prophet sales management software allows you to save print and send information to others in a variety of file formats including aspx PDF Word and Excel. This way individuals can view it and use it no matter what software programs they have on their computers.
You can begin using Prophet sales management software today.
For more information about Prophet sales management software simply visit Avidian Technologies website Avidian.com. If after reviewing the information and learning more about Prophet sales management software you would like to purchase the sales management software you can do so on avidian.com. Your purchase can be of either actual physical software that is mailed to your company or business postal address or you can download the sales management software from the website for immediate use. This means that you can start using Prophet sales management software today!
If you are an executive or manager of a business or company that is looking to take their sales to the next level consider purchasing a sales management software program such as Prophet. Prophet sales management software is not only easy to learn and easy to use but it also makes employees more efficient as it makes adding and changing information much easier than competing sales management software programs. In addition with Prophet sales management software sharing information with both internal and external individuals is much easier than competitors sales management software programs. If you are interested in purchasing Prophet sales management software to help your employees manage your clients and business contacts and to improve your sales and customer service visit the website of Avidian Technologies today at www.avidian.com
About Avidian Technologies:
Avidian Technologies is a software company specializing in creating software solutions for users of Outlook and Exchange. Prophet developed by Avidian Technologies on the .NET platform is the leading contact management and sales CRM software built in Outlook. The company is headquartered in Redmond Washington. For more information please visit http://www.avidian.com or call 18008605534.
About the writer: Many of today’s most successful large and small businesses have chosen Avidian’s CRM Software as their sales management and contact management software.
