Xsell Systems

Many a times during the course of making our presentations, we tend to lose the attention of some of our audiences. This article presents 5 effective ways to re-capture your audiences attention attention. Have you come across times whilst making your presentation, you feel like your audience is drifting into la la land or they beginning to switch off? According to communication psychologist people give a lot of non-verbal messages about whether they are listening. As a rule, if you see your audience start crossing their legs, fidgeting or looking around often, chances are you losing their attention. How to rein in those who are starting to switch off? I present to you the 5 strategies. 1. Sudden...

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required. Mail to: Regardless of the nature of our job or social standing, sooner or later we will be called upon to make a presentation of one sort or the other. To sharpen your skills, whet your audience's appetite, and educate them, organize your presentation by keeping them in mind. To help you do just that, here are some tips to consider: * Have an inviting opening. Greet your audience with a statement that conveys your...

Where do you start with the presentation? Well, first find out the title and the key points you are expected to address. It is very important to find out who else is talking and what they are going to talk about. You want to make sure that you do not cover exactly the same ground as someone else, otherwise the audience will just get bored. Determine how long you are going to be asked to talk for as this will help you to work out if the time you have means you can only give an overview or whether you are required to give an in-depth presentation of your topic. If you only have time for an overview then identify what you must say, what it would be good to say and the points that you will address only...

Almost everyone feels a bit nervous about delivering a presentation before a group. Some people would rather undergo a root canal than experience the anxiety of giving a speech. Follow some basic guidelines for preparation and delivery, and you can transform your nervousness into positive energy that achieves the results you desire. The secrets to successful presentations are simple, based on common sense. Many people, however, fail to employ them. Step One: Purpose What's the purpose of your presentation? There are many reasons to make a speech or announcement, and you need to clearly define your goal. Do you have to deliver bad news to your department? Do you require a decision from your superiors...

Would you Like Help in Preparing Your Presentation? Whether it’s presenting to your manager, a team of colleagues, or pitching for new business the success of any presentation is dependent on structuring a clear message and delivering that message with confidence and conviction. But how do you ensure that your presentation has a good structure with a message that is clear enough for your audience in the first place? • Do you sometimes feel you dont know where to start? • Do you sometimes put off preparing until the last minute? • Do you put off preparing as you're just too nervous to think about it? • Would you like to have a more logical structure to your presentations? Read on if you...

1) The new realities of selling in the 21st century The sales industry has changed so much from the past. It is important for sales people to understand this evolution. - There are more sellers than buyers today - Selling today is more complex than it has ever been because customers are more complex. - Selling today requires greater focus than ever before. - Sales today require multiple calls. - Selling today and closing are harder than they have ever been. With more varieties of products, customers are pampered with choices, thus creating buyer's market. 2) Getting more and better prospects A good prospect is someone who can and will buy and pay withing a reasonable period of time. Here are the...

Business coach's often work with their clients to help them move the sales conversation forward past the obstacles they face. This often means wrestling with the challenge of dealing with clients, customers, and even their own sales team. These conversations tend to be emotional, time constrained, on the street, in a car and often they may not be going your way, in other words - dynamic. So how can you help them quickly and professionally overcome these challenges? Theory is wonderful and an evil necessity, however it takes a robust and equally dynamic training method to achieve real world results. Especially with a client that may actually have broken communication skills. Strong communication...

Every sales technique has its own uniqueness. The special flavor is added on to by the sales person and the customer involved in the transaction. While some customers are indifferent and cold to whatever options a sales person provides to them, there will be an enthusiastic category willing to hear and make their own choices. The targets of a sales person are both these categories. Dealing with the former category can be tough no doubt, but this is what constitutes the challenge of being a salesperson. While dealing with cold customers, one should keep a few tricks of the trade in mind. 1. Do not bring your ego in the professional sphere. 2. Just keep one goal in mind- you have to sell your product...

How to drive sales using the power of your telephone? What if you discovered how to boost your sales using telephone? Do you want to know a simple step-by-step system that you can use to boost sales using the power of telephone and Internet? Here are 3 simple steps to get you started. Step 1 - Create a simple sales letter presenting your product. Step 2 - Ask them to fill up a survey form if they are interested for a free strategy session. Step 3 - Call them up, provide quality content and close the sale. The purpose of this article is to show you how to market your expensive products easily. Here are step by step details that you can apply quickly and easily. Step 1 - Create a simple sales letter...

If you run a tire shop or a tire store then everyone who works there needs to know a little bit about sales and a lot about tires. You should have routine classes for all employees so they can answer questions about road hazards, tire wear, inflation pressures and the various companies and brands that you sell. Customers need this information and they want it and desire it. Additionally, every person in the tire store should understand when the customer has a problem or a question that can be solved by another purchase that they need to be referred to the person who takes the orders. Often customers will ask about balancing, car rims or performance tires. When a customer starts asking these...

As a car sales trainer many of my students are always asking me if I could show them a new close. First of all there is NO one close that works all the time. What you fail to understand is that closing is one of the last steps to the sale. But in disguise it starts at the beginning. What do I mean by that? Basic outline of steps to a sale: 1. First impressions 2. Greeting 3. Rapport building 4. Qualifying 5. Presenting the vehicle 6. Demonstrating the vehicle 7. Asking for the order 8. Getting a commitment to purchase 9. Pre-Closing 10. Re-Closing If you notice above, closing is one of the last steps to a sale. So me teaching you to perform a quick close will not be effective. If you want success...

When I decided to become a salesman which was in 1960 I had the good fortune to join a newspaper group that was just about to develop an operation to sell Classified Advertising. It may surprise you to learn that Classified Advertisements had not been actively sold previously by any newspapers in the UK. I was 30 years of age at the time and as a rookie salesman I joined a new team of recruits formed to sell Classified adverts to the local business community. At the same time a new telesales department was set up with 12 new female telesales operators. This operation was duplicated throughout every newspaper office within The Thompson newspaper group. Because this was a new operation, no local...

As a car sales professional, your ability to quickly establish rapport is the first, most important key to your success. In order to establish this rapport, you must demonstrate you are professional, can be trusted and have valuable information to provide your buyer. You must also demonstrate that you have no intention of sticking to your prospect like glue - even though that is exactly what you intend to do. When you introduce yourself, introduce yourself to everyone in the group. If you are working with a family with children, adjust your body to their height when you speak to them. I still hear trainers say today that the car salesman should "remember to pay attention to the wife." Today, you...

Ask any sales person what she dislikes about cold calls and chances are she'll say, "the rejection." Now I'm not going to be silly enough to say there isn't any rejection in cold calling, but let me tell you where I see that rejection coming from. I've been a technical recruiter for almost 20 years... that means I make a lot of cold calls. For me, cold calls alone, really aren't a source of rejection; they're just not that big a deal. In fact, each call is an opportunity to connect, to deliver value in a sales conversation and to begin deepening a professional relationship. Does that always happen? No, but it happens often enough that picking up the phone and talking with someone I've never spoken...

When selling, keep the following 3 keys to sales success in mind: 1. Motivation In order to be successful in sales you need to have a high level of motivation. This involves being a self-starter and being driven to do whatever it takes, ethically, to be highly successful. To achieve a high level of motivation and drive it is important to get clear on WHAT you want to accomplish and then WHY you want to accomplish it. The WHY is extremely important because if your WHY is strong enough, you will find a way to do almost anything. 2. Sales Ability Sales ability is another key to sales success. You must know how to get qualified leads, present your product, close sales, and follow up effectively. In...

How do you succeed at sales? By having a sales road map. You see,the road map is the dream; the road is the goal; and putting it into action is the vehicle that makes your sales career go. It has been said that 90 percent of all people have no set goals; 5 percent of all people have set goals; and the remaining 5 percent of all people have set goals and write them down. My sales friend, we want to be part of that last category of people who have set goals and write them down. That is the group of sales professionals who are reaching their goals and living their dreams. But writing your goals down isn't enough. How you write them down is extremely important. Write your goals down in first person...

If you are a sales manager in charge of training aircraft sales people you need to be sure of a number of items. Aircraft sales should not be a high-pressure business and if you have people coming from the auto industry to sell aircraft you might be surprised if they do not do as well as you might expect. The average aircraft buyer is much more sophisticated and in the aircraft generally sell from between $100,000 for a small single up to 10-15,000,000 dollars for a corporate jet. Often there will be lawyers, accountants and business owners or boards of directors all involved in the sale of the aircraft and each one will have in mind a reason and a methodology for making their decision and you...

Selling requires you to have a thick mental skin. Not only do you have to handle your personal problems, but you also must deal with many professional problems. Lost sales, an angry customer, or a botched service call on your best customer's equipment-all of these can challenge your attitude. While no one is entirely immune to the effects of negative events, there are several things you can do to build up your mental immune system and help ensure that you succeed in sales. 6 Ideas to Stay Positive in Sales 1) Stay healthy - Eat, sleep, and exercise. You know how much sleep you need, and for the most part you probably have a good idea about how to eat right and exercise properly. If you have a...

Intimidation is why most people avoid pursuing other people they want to meet. In the quest for sales this would mean C-levels and top decision makers. Sure there are those that storm the C-Suite only to be thrown back like undersized fish. These rouges are not intimidated, but they're not too smart either. Senior executives are a well protected and scary bunch. To win them over, one must have a confident resolve and a strategy to sail into their waters. Intimidation is an anchor. Intimidation stems from the self doubt one feels about his or her ability or worthiness to interact with someone powerful. For example; you're intimidated by the bully because you doubt your ability to protect yourself or...

Stop chasing customers out the door with your sales presentation! You'll gain greater profitability when you set the losing sales routines free and use confidence as a sales and marketing booster in your business. Customers are magnetically attracted to confident sales people. They can't help themselves, they're simply drawn to the confidence and compelled to purchase from the person who believes so strongly in their product that they stop selling and let the buyer make the decision. Recently, on a search for the best bed for my granddaughter, who had outgrown her crib, I visited several retail outlets. The first mattress salesman shared several mattress designs with me and pointed me to a low end...

Someone once identified over 30 categories of questions one could ask. After reading that statement, my question was; how could anyone track that many types and how could they track all the responses to those questions. Call me conservative, but I think we can settle on just four broad categories and then by carefully utilizing the questions, find almost any information needed to be successful at Retail Sales. Those four broad categories are Rapport-building, open-ended, closed, and finally the non-question question Let's look at each type in some detail: 1) Rapport-building question: Rapport is one of the most important components of unconscious human interaction. It can be thought of as...

It isn't quite a shock as to what wholesale suppliers and dropshippers of electronics can do to small online business and those who are just starting their own. That is why if you are thinking of establishing your own online electronics store, you must know how to get the cheapest electronics nowadays. That is why wholesale directories come in handy. They give you the best deals in the electronics market, and give you the lowest prices that you can have to give you a higher profit. These directories also give you and overview about various suppliers: their reputation, their services, their feedback and many others. This is one reason why retail businesses often use directories to help their business...

Sales management training methods can be centered on the introduction of effective Sales 2.0 methods. In the wake of emerging websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other social networking platforms and sites, these effective methods are changing the landscape for motivational sales training. Thus, as companies begin to realize the benefits of these free and wide-reaching tools, sales team training can be improved for better results. Traditional Marketing Methods Older methods of sales prospecting have seen a decline in effectiveness and use of budget. Snail mail, in-person prospecting, and phone calls are becoming an insufficient use of a company's money. Either by direct costs...

How can you 'create' power and leverage for yourself in negotiations? Is there a way that you can counter the power held by your counterparts in negotiations? There is a way that you can consistently create power for yourself whilst at the same time countering the power of your counterparts. If you consistently apply this technique, you will be rewarded with a significant improvement in the quality of the deals that you close. Much has been written about the power that can be found in negotiations. Here are some examples of the things that might provide you with some power: - Status & position (you or your position may be held in high regard) - Physical appearance (you may be very big physically or...

Any salesperson can tell you that a customer knows what he wants before he ever steps foot on the lot. From brand to features and options, most customers just need to have five key questions answered for them before they buy. They want to be convinced that they are buying the right car with the right features for the right price at the right place at the right time. That seems like a lot, but if you break it down, closing the deal is really quite easy. Automotive Sales Question One: Do I need the features this vehicle has? Be prepared to discuss the various features of the vehicle and how the customer will benefit from them. You can gain this information through the process of investigation...

Have you ever been in the position where you are getting, what you think to be, close to concluding the deal only to find your client comes up with objections? Some would argue, as salespeople, we have not handled all the possible objections upfront, in other words we have not demonstrated our value proposition fully. However, in the real world objections at the last minute happen to all of us regardless of what we think we have done to conclude the deal. What objection? It is what we see as an objection and how we manage that objection that will give us the edge in closing the deal. I have been asked many times about how to handle objections and my initial stock answer is usually, "Have you fully...

Professional closers have certain attributes that set them apart from everyday salesmen. Most salesmen look professional in their behavior and appearance and they are punctual, well-groomed, courteous, reliable, smart and well-dressed like professional closers. But it's not about appearance or behaviour. Being a professional closer is something deeper; it's the "force from within" that makes a salesperson a professional closer, that inner confidence and absolute belief in himself. Here are the attributes that make the professional closer the best of the best and an absolute winner: - A professional closer is ambitious for success. He has an insatiable hunger, a burning desire to achieve and to...

If you're involved in a sales environment where you need to get appointments so that you can pitch to offer your products or services, you may struggle to get appointments from time to time. A lot of sales people do not like calling for appointments. Don't be one of them, with these tips and ideas. 1. Dream big. Why not approach the big corporations? They have to get their products and services from somewhere, why can't it be you? 2. Call the most unlikely / hardest target first. This will get it out of the way, and you may even get a positive outcome. If you don't get a positive outcome, you still have the rest of the day to make more appointments 3. Write down your goals, and you are more likely...

"I've got a great product, and I know this prospect can use it, but I can't get this person interested." Sound familiar. Well the problem to this dilemma is not the competition or your price. It's the word "I". Look how many times "I" is used. Try restating in terms of the prospect. It may look something like, "You've got a problem you need to solve as it relates to.... You're probably looking for solutions and you're trying to find someone to help you. I'm curious what you see as your problem and what your concept of a solution for it is?" Sales people approach a prospect with the attitude that they have a great offering the prospect has to have. I mean, "What company doesn't need it?" I mean, "It...

A while back I was fortunate enough secure a very competitive order. How competitive? For starters, one of our own dealerships was quoting the same product at a lower price. Second, the prospect was personal friends with one of the competitors. Finally, an associate of the prospect was telling him not to do business with our company due to a bad experience this associate had with a product sold to them by one of our dealerships; even though the operation of the dealership had no strong affiliation with us. Tough deal to win? I kind of thought so. Impossible; said one co-worker. When I heard that, I welcomed the challenge, and the following is how I dealt with each of the prospects three objections...

Wal-Mart may conger up some images for you, yet one thing Wal-Mart does is to have a Greeter to make people feel welcome. Even the old K-Mart use to announces "Welcome K-Mart shoppers." Unfortunately, after the Greeter or the welcome message, you get lost in the sea of people and merchandise and it's next to impossible to find someone to show you where to find what you're looking for, because they're too busy stocking shelves. So always greet your customers. If all your people are busy with other customers, someone should at least acknowledge the new entrant. Even the post office gives you a number. Don't ignore them or make them feel like an intruder. Let them know how long the wait will be and...

"If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him you are his sincere friend." Abraham Lincoln Nowhere is this truer than in selling, where you are trying to persuade another, often a stranger, to make a decision they may not even have considered prior to your meeting. The buyer-seller situation - like any human contact - is an exercise in human relations: the interplay, cause and effect of behaviour by two or more people on each other. In the buyer-seller situation, the seller must be responsible for shaping mutual behaviour. What's the difference between human nature and human relations?o Human nature is the instinctive behaviour that governs action concerned with the self and with self...

Effective Sales Presentation Giving effective sales presentations can be challenging, but also very rewarding. Mastering this skill can mean the difference between a mediocre career in sales, and that of a sales super star. For non-sales professionals, knowing how to give effective sales presentations can be a huge boon to your career. Although you may not be paid on a commission basis that is tied to the purchase price of a product, or the fee of a service, in many ways, sales presentations are a part of our every day life, whether we know it or not. In other words, we all have to "sell" - whether we are selling our position or viewpoint, our information and expertise, or simply ourselves...

Our recent research shows that nearly 80% of salespeople do not understand what their primary purpose is. Your principle mission is to Gain Commitment. The confusion stems from the variety of tasks we as salespeople are asked to perform. The end result is that 62% of salespeople make calls where there is no attempt at Gaining Commitment. One of the most important reasons why this occurs is most salespeople do not establish what we call a Commitment Objective for every sales call. This is the number one mistake that all salespeople make. Well, it's time to change that! Commitment Objective: A goal we set for ourselves to gain agreement from the customer that moves the sales process forward. No sales...

How can you become a better sales negotiator? For such a simple question, there seems to be no corresponding simple answer. I guess that we all know that the best sales negotiators seem to always know what to do and when to do it. Now if there was only some way that we could pick up those same skills! I believe that the right way to reach this level of sales negotiating skill is to develop the same set of skills that the really good negotiators have. I've got five of them for you to learn right here... Things That You Need To Know Today's modern cars are wonders of invention. However, they all seem to be so complex with wires, computers, and whatnot. Sales negotiations today are pretty much the same...

Counter one of the classic negotiating gambits by addressing it directly. You've assembled a brilliant sales proposal for a new client and when you arrive to the meeting to hammer out the final details, you suddenly find yourself sitting across the table negotiating with two people. One is a person with whom you've had contact during the sales process; the other is new - a purchasing agent. The former is characteristically warm, gracious, and quite friendly to your proposal. The latter is hard-nosed, aloof, and completely opposed to nearly every one of your positions. They are playing the classic negotiating tactic of 'good guy - bad guy.' In the audiobook, "Sound Advice on Negotiating Skills...

You've contacted someone and opened the sales call with these words: "Hello, this is Gary Goodman with .." And right at this moment the prospect replies, "I'm not interested!" Rude, don't you think? Here you are, at the very beginning of what you hope will be a pleasant give-and-take, and they cut you off before you can give anything! So, how can you respond, presuming they haven't hung-up? You can do the intuitive thing, which is also the most defensive, and that is to argue with the prospect: "How can you BE interested; I haven't even said anything, yet!" This is guaranteed to earn that hang-up, for you. You can try to ignore it. This was my Aunt Cecelia's approach. When you hear something you don...

Every sales professional knows that objections are simply one of the parts of any sales presentation. Not all objections, raised by your customer, are negative. A good deal of them, are actually questions asking for more information or clarification on a certain point, feature or topic that the sales person brings up. It is vital for the sales pro to acknowledge each raised objection. Whether or not you choose to actually ADDRESS and handle the objection, at the moment it is proffered, depends on timing and also on the kind of objection it is. When it comes to a question asking for more information or clarification on a certain fact or topic, a good rule of thumb is to answer that inquiry when it is...

Every sales person has had to overcome an objection. Some even find a new line of work because of them. If your income depends on the sale then chances are you have found a way to overcome objections and even discovered the secret of how to make them work for you, not against you. The first mistake we usually make is assuming we know what the customer is going to object to. We have crafted our response even before they are done speaking. Thinking we know exactly what is on their mind, we interrupt the customer with our response. In effect, we have answered an objection with an objection and most customers would be on their way to the door. It is proven that most of us quit listening to the customer...

Consumers are growing more and more skeptical of falling victim to online scams everyday so they are very, very careful before clicking your "Buy Now" button. Whenever you are trying to sell something you must consider that prospect WILL have reservations about buying your product. You must use your 'copy' to pre-empt the prospects objection and gain their trust. This is the only way to "Win the Sale." In face to face selling or telemarketing this is a bit easier to do because you can read the customer's buying and non-buying signals. You can read these signs by their voice fluctuation and tone as well as in the body language they display. So how do you compensate for this lack of interaction within...

There are two critical dimensions to resolving objections, especially regarding complex and critical corporate-wide issues. First technical knowledge - you know how important it is to have the technical knowledge you need to develop a credible, substantive response. The second is communication skills. Even the most thorough response can fail to satisfy the client's objection if it is not delivered effectively. The key is to create a dialogue, connect, tailor your response - and not lecture your client. The "right" answer can seem wrong if it is too long, too short, too technical, or positioned inappropriately. What you think is the "right" answer can even reinforce the objection you are trying to...

A salesperson's responsibility can best be summarized by the following large responsibilities each requiring separate competencies: 1. Prospecting - a salesperson must always be identifying future users of the product or service and determining how they can benefit from the company's offerings. The phrase that salespeople use is to maintain a steady pipeline of prospects that potentially can blossom into customers. Just like a gardener has to nurture planted seeds to see them bloom into flowers at some future point, so too must a salesperson be vigilant to always developing new leads or potential customers. Part of the prospecting effort is to not only identify potential companies that can use one...

Lost business does not necessarily mean lost forever. Many salespeople unfortunately neglect this lucrative source of new business. I say new because, if you learn to treat these past customers as brand new prospects, you may just regain their business. There are a number of reasons why customers leave you. Some of them are: 1. They were wooed away by a competitor offering better prices, service or some outlandish promises. 2. Management in the organization has changed, and they are not aware of the strengths of your servicesor products. This information was most likely not passed on to them by their predecessor. 3. You or your organization failed to deliver as promised. 4. You or your organization...

Selling yourself in business is a lot like selling yourself in dating. In both instances you want a way to say the right thing, at the right time… all the time. No one really taught us the "right thing" to say... until now. I urge my clients to be authentic, be a good listener, ask powerful open-ended questions, be truly interested, and find out what’s important to the other person. This also sounds like a pretty good system for effective dating. After all, if you dominate the dating conversation, talk only about yourself, or focus on why it’s a good idea for the other person to respond to your “offer”, your results will be, at best, hit and miss. Jenny...

One of the major problems experienced by presenters involves the time; not enough time, too much time and running out of time. The difficulty is that when time becomes a problem we suffer -- and sometimes we go to pieces. Presentation timing problems cause anxiety and stress for a presenter. We end up giving the wrong impression to the presentation audience and we need to fix the problem. There are 5 key planning steps that we have to consider for any presentation: 1. Time to plan. As presenters we are responsible for being at an event and making a presentation at the right time, on the right day and on the right subject. That's something we can do with planning. We have a lead time before the...

Effective questioning is a critical selling skill for several reasons. First, our recent research shows that there is a direct correlation between the success of a sales call and the type of questions that the salesperson uses. On average, failed sales calls include 86% more close-ended questions than open-ended questions. Effective questioning is a critical selling skill for several reasons. First, our recent research shows that there is a direct correlation between the success of a sales call and the type of questions that the salesperson uses. On average, failed sales calls include 86% more close-ended questions than open-ended questions. Successful Sales Calls Have...

At various times in your student career you may be called upon to give presentations - of your ideas, your work, your views. These may be to your peers, to academics, to the wider public. They may take any form, from that of a prepared lecture to an unscripted and unpremeditated contribution in the course of a discussion. Whatever the case, you will achieve best results if you make your point clearly and persuasively. Presentation, like publicity, is the art of persuasion, and the most effective presenters are those who rise to the challenge with a defence of themselves and their contribution. A presentation, like an essay, should have the structure of an argument accompanied by an assured and...

If you have a big presentation coming up, you might be nervous. But don't sweat it. Stay calm and keep the following tips in mind when presenting an important campaign to your boss or client. After all, there's no point in making a sales pitch if you can't convince your audience and exude confidence. Refer to these five tips when making your next formal presentation. 1. You should always look your best. Wear your best suit, get a full eight hours of sleep, and eat a balanced breakfast. Every great sales pitch begins with the perfect handshake. Come in there prepared and confident to make the most desirable first impression. 2. Display your work in a professional manner. To catch the eyes of your...

Here are my 7 tips for polishing your presentations and giving maximum value to your audience: 1. Involve the audience by asking them questions and for their own stories and experiences to support what you are saying. However, only ask a question if you know they will get the answer right! You are not there to test them and a series of wrong answers will take you off-track and begin to irritate. 2. Talk for about 15 minutes at most without audience participation, or you will lose their attention. People always start to perk up if they think they may be asked for a contribution! 3. Use plenty of anecdotes and human interest to engage your audience's imagination. Human beings love stories and...