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How to Get Prospects to Set Goalposts For Winning Their Business
You’ve probably dealt with prospects that won’t leave their incumbent agent in spite of whatever cost, service, or coverage improvements you were able to deliver.I’ve heard one producer say that even...
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How to Ace the “What Makes You Different?” Challenge
“I get these calls all the time. What makes you different than the other agents/marketers/ IT people, etc.?”If you spend any time on the phone prospecting, you’ve probably had this challenge thrown at...
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When Prospects Are Afraid to Pull the Trigger
Ever deal with a business insurance prospect who’s interested but can’t quite commit to meeting with you?“I think I’ll wait ’til next year.”“We’ve compared in the past and it didn’t work out so I don’t...
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Overcoming Buyers’ Last Minute Inertia
Last time we wrote about those frustrating times when prospects hem and haw, refusing to commit to setting an appointment or closing the deal, even when you’ve shown them it’s clearly in their best...
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Don’t be Blinded by the Golden Rule
Offering clients the same kind of service and support that you value yourself ought to be in line with anyone’s idea of best practices and top shelf service, right?But what if your customer has...
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Talk Less – Say More
The fashion icon and entrepreneur Coco Chanel always paused to consider her outfit before leaving for an engagement, and made it a habit to remove the last item she had put on. Her guiding mantra in...
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The Attitude We Take Determines the Impressions We Make
Years ago, Rolling Stone magazine launched an ad campaign aimed at changing the view of potential advertisers who saw the magazine as a cult music paper read by anti-materialist hippie dropouts.The...
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Cultivating the Attitude Advantage
Is your attitude conveying the message you want others to be getting?Dan Goleman, writing in his seminal book, Emotional Intelligence, points out that “People who are adept at reading and dealing...
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5 Ways to Help Someone in Need (Even When You Have No Time, Money, or Resources)
These kinds of things happen all the time. But when it happens to someone you know well, you pay more attention.A producer friend I’ll call Ruth was getting ready to renew the business insurance for...
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What’s Your Proposition for 2016?
Whatever you’re selling – a product, a service, even an idea – you need to communicate its value.But value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. That’s a universal truth. Value is only...
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4 Signs a Prospect is Hot (Or Not)
In the game of baseball, the best hitters develop a good eye for pitches that are right in the strike zone. In criminal investigations, the great detectives know how to zero in on the real suspects and...
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The Secret to Seeing Eye to Eye with Every Prospect
Let’s start with this: talk is an activity; communication is a process. You can’t sell anything without communication. But you can talk and talk and not communicate a thing. I’m sure you know what...
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Warning: Weak Prospecting Now Means Weak Sales Tomorrow
It’s close to the end of the quarter, and you’re feeling the pressure to close new accounts and hit your numbers before the deadline arrives.To do that, you’ve got to work smart, and you’ve got to work...
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The Secret Behind Full Bandwidth Phone Prospecting
I almost couldn’t believe it.When I first saw the marketing power of the telephone I was absolutely amazed.We’d just started PMA and developed a direct mail program for independent insurance agencies...
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Do You See What I Mean?
We all know the saying “seeing is believing,” but how often do we apply that practical wisdom on phone calls and at sales meetings?Years ago I was voicing my frustrations to a rep from a list company...
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The Hidden Value of Student Interns
It’s May, and colleges and universities are breaking for summer vacation. Soon the high schools will be letting out as well. Lots of young people will head for summer internships to learn something...
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5 Simple Tactics Guaranteed to Raise Your Sales Quotient
It’s amazing how forgetting just one detail, one part of the overall process, can change an outcome. Take cooking, for example. We have successfully followed the same great recipe again and again, but...
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Motivating Your Invisible Self
What’s the best way to psych yourself up for an important sales meeting, a job interview, a special date, or the big game?We all have different routines to help us get in the zone – what’s yours?One...
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Why We Yearn to Buy From Real People
It’s pretty clear that today’s buyers, both consumers and businesses, rely heavily on Internet research to gather data, compare products, and scope out the field of options.But in many cases that...
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Ready?
What’s the one attribute, the single most important quality that you’ll find at the heart of every successful, high performing sales person?Is it social skill? Is it product knowledge?...
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