Xsell Systems

One of the most important steps while cold calling is to qualify the prospect. By qualifying properly, you will be using your selling time most effectively. 4 steps to qualifying on the cold call 1) Make sure you have the decision maker - After the opening of your cold call, your first question should simply be: "Are you the one who makes the buying decisions for (whatever it is you're selling)?" Once you get an affirmative reply, find out if anyone else is involved. Ask, "And who else is involved in the decision-making process?" 2) Make sure there is a need for your product - The next step in your cold call is to make sure there is a need for your product. In addition, you are looking for ways in...

We highly recommend you have a cold call script when cold calling. Your cold call script must be well thought out, well prepared, written down, committed to memory, and most important, one that is proven to work. If you have thoroughly memorized your cold call and you're interrupted in the middle by a prospect's question or comment, you'll be able to deal with it and then go right back to where you were in the cold call. You can also focus of how you're saying something rather than what you're saying during your cold call. Granted, in face-to-face selling you can't have your written-out cold call in front of you. But writing it out and committing it to memory ahead of time will ensure that you have...

What follows are the 3 most effective ways to eliminate the competition: 1. Relationship with the prospect/customer The relationship with the salesperson is the number one reason people give for doing business with a particular company. The stronger relationship you have with your customer / client, the less chance your competitor has of getting a foot in the door. Have a stronger relationship with the prospect/customer than the competition does and you will make the sale more often than not. 2. Value Value involves two components: perceived value, and actual, or recognized value. Perceived value is what causes the prospect to initially either buy or not buy. Assuming the prospect recognizes the...

Sales and Customer Service go hand in hand. Sales brings the customer in the door and service keeps them in the door. In this article, we going to take a look at how Nordstrom creates a sales environment through great customer service. Joy was in the air. It was Christmas time. That special time of the year when we sing, fellowship, and of course shop. Reverend Carolyn Crawford was no different. She walked into a Nordstrom Department Store and was immediately bombarded with the sights and sounds of Christmas. The store was beautifully decorated with all the Christmas trimmings. The air wasfilled with the sweet aroma of perfume and potpourri. And of course the glorious sounds of Christmas music...

It may happen many times during your selling day: You're cold calling and just before you enter a door to an office, a big sign stares you in the face: "No Soliciting". What should you do? Should you ignore it and continue with your cold call, or should you heed its warning and avoid making this particular cold call? 3 Sales Tips for handling "No Soliciting" signs when cold calling Step 1: Ignore it - If you run into a No Soliciting sign between your car and the receptionist's desk, ignore it. Occasionally, someone you call on will refer to the sign, but for the most part you'll find that people won't bring it up. If they do, simply acknowledge what was said, and then state the purpose of your call...

Is it possible to train a natural sales person to show more empathy, to see the world from the customers perspective or to listen more? Well, actually you might be surprised that the best natural sales people already do this and they do it so well and naturally that often we have no idea they are doing it. Yet we wonder why they make more sales. It is important to make sure that those natural salesmen and women in your group help mentor the junior salespeople and this will help you in training your sales teams and sales people to Empathize and Listen. If your sales teams are not listening then they are talking and telling and badgering and harassing clientele, potential customers and prospects. That...

If you are a sales manager and if you want to get better on what you do, these tips are for you: 1. Instill customer service excellence. Impressing customers and giving them 100% satisfaction is not a new idea. You will need to make your sales people understand that aside from offering your clients with products and services that address their needs and demands, they must also offer world class customer service. Your sales people must have in-depth knowledge about your product portfolio so they can offer satisfying answers to the questions thrown at them and help your clients in making well-informed decisions. 2. Choose the best people. Here's the truth; selling is a tough job and it is not for...

In 2000 a computer distributor hired me to help them build a software specialist sales team. The distributor had more than 100 "generalist" salespeople, but these salespeople were doing a poor job of selling software. The distributor's management felt a team of specialists could help jump-start growth in software sales. This was a very interesting project for several reasons. First, the distributor had sixteen software products in its portfolio. Second, they couldn't afford to hire experienced software salespeople. Instead, we needed to hire good consultative salespeople and train them to sell all sixteen software products. We also needed to write a business plan, get a budget approved, hire six...

This article is about how you can learn to be more assertive and to BE your BEST SELF ! Recently, I helped a client of mine to do something that was tremendouslyliberating for him and helped him to really make huge strides in their success. I encouraged and assisted them in an exercise that I designed for several clients over the years. Originally this sprang from my own experience and I remember how incredible it felt tobe able to be more assertive. You will discover an incredibly effective way to transform yourself into a more assertive personwithout needing to become a jerk. Let me walk you through this process the way I did for my very happy client so that when Ishare the step by step process...

Never enter into any agreement or negotiation from a point of desperation. The moment you show how desperate you are, you disarm yourself of the bargaining power. The value of the transaction will be compromised by your APPETITE & APPARENT desire. Rather stand back, gather yourself & your thoughts & reschedule the talks. Often we place a PRICE tag on goods based on our NEEDS. No one desires to spend more than the real VALUE of product or service. As African businessmen, politicians and the like we have missed the POWER of EFFECTIVE NEGOTIATION hence time, value and resources have gone to waste. Where we potentially could have reaped $millions, we have settled for a few $thousands which of course...

I used to think there were people who were naturally good at negotiation, and those (like me) who were naturally bad; in other words it's like being tall, or having a good singing voice. To a certain extent this can be true - there are those who seem to like the cut and thrust of negotiation, but unlike height or perfect pitch negotiation is a skill that can easily be learned, and a skill that a person improves with practice. To get you started here are some tips I have found useful when conducting a negotiation. 1. Always prepare carefully in advance - find out all you can about who you will be negotiating with and what it is they might want, remembering what it is you actually want to achieve...

This is an area in which many people have fairly little experience before their student years. For the first time you are a part of a community in which you play an adult and engaged role. As an academic you are in a position to change minds, and as a member of a university you are entitled to make your views known. Besides this, you will probably have more to do with letting agents, landlords, banks and businesses than ever before, and may even choose to involve yourself in the logistical aspect of organising student union and society events like balls, parties, plays and so on which will require some confidence as a negotiator. Whatever the context, the cardinal rule is to remain civil and...

Negotiation is an important tool, that all of us use at different times, at different phase of our life, to achieve different goals. The first time probably we negotiated in our life, when as a child we kept shouting for mother's milk. The negotiations are typically tagged with a price, which may or not be expressed in monetary term. For example a marital negotiation has a typical price line of social status, whereas a negotiation in the job interview the price line is clearly money. There can be more than one one price line also, provided there are different areas involved in the negotiation. For example in a union-management negotiation apart form salary, there can be price lines involving working...

p>Most small business owners are very good at what they do, whether they are consultants, coaches, web designers, copywriters, etc... But most of them never attended a school or training to learn how to negotiate. They need to learn it on their own, and they often learn it the hard way, losing contracts and clients. What are the keys to successful negotiation? 1. You need to know exactly how to explain your business, in a simple and easy way for people to understand the benefits of working with you instead of your competitors. 2. You need to listen to your prospects or clients, to find THE solution to solve their challenges. So as soon as they told you what they need you will be able to tell them...

Every business deal becomes an ultimate success when it is negotiated well. Negotiation skill is the most important skill required for running a business. This is a skill, which needs to be practiced regularly to master it. Taking care of some simple steps described here you can enhance this skill. Knowledge Base Negotiation invariably requires a deep knowledge on the subject related to the deal. Without a deep knowledge on the subject, there is a greater chance for a filed negotiation. So, it is better to acquire as much as knowledge you can have about the deal. It includes the profitability, current trends and many other factors you can think of related to a business deal. Deep knowledge will...

What do you do if you don't like the results a salesperson is producing? What do you do when a salesperson shows some flashes of ability, but his or her performance is not consistent? How do you determine what the problem(s) might be? For that matter, how do you determine whether a brand new salesperson is performing enough of the right activities to meet his or her 30, 60, and 90 day performance goals? If you don't have results to measure, or if you are trying to trouble-shoot why a salesperson is not producing enough results, you need to inspect the salesperson's activities. Activity inspection provides an "early warning system" for many performance problems. Plus, when activity is inspected...

Are you concerned that you are not monitoring the performance of your company's salespeople properly or effectively? Would you like to have a "report card" that can help you gauge the effectiveness of each salesperson's performance? What should this report card look like? Report card frequency and time frame(s) The first questions to answer when designing a sales report card are: - How frequently do you want to produce a report card? - What time frame(s) do you want the report card to cover? Here are some additional questions that will help you zero in on useful answers to the first two questions: - What data do you have on hand that can help you measure sales performance? - How often is this data...

You have been successful in obtaining a lead into your capture page, your autoresponder emails are now being sent out to your prospects, and you get a reply email back with a load of questions, how do you deal with this? Or it may be that you have followed through and phoned them up and you receive a lot of objections on the phone. Dealing with the above can be the difference between your prospect signing up with you, or moving on and finding a stronger 'leader' in another MLM, Network Marketing or Direct Sales company to sign up with. At the same time, its your first real contact, and you are not sure how you should go about handling this, and feel the fear build within you... 'am I ready to deal...

An objection means that someone, your prospect, is opposed to something. The word opposed means to be in conflict with or to be resistant to a particular thing. An example is being opposed to war, that means that a person doesn't believe that there should be a war. If you have someone who is principally opposed to war and you bring up the subject, then you can just picture what that person turns into. It's almost as though they take their foot and put it up against the wall behind them and they're going to stand their ground. You will run into people who are in conflict with something (very opposed to it) and people who are resistant. Your job in effectively handling questions and objection is to...

Listen. Sales resistance is OK. Why? Because it's impossible for ANY publication to satisfy the needs of the entire population, or the EXACT needs of any one customer. When you're selling adspace, you're the shooter, and your client is the target. If the shooter misses the target, it's NOT the target's fault. Just imagine if your publication tried to satisfy the demands and desires of each buyer for audience, editorial, price, features, and so forth. You'd grind to a complete halt as you ran out of space. And you would end up with no identity at all. Which means that, NONE of your clients is going to end up with the exact audience they want, with their adverts surrounded by the exact editorial...

The ability to effectively handle objections is without doubt the single biggest factor in getting prospects to buy. An objection is first and foremost an indication that at some level the prospect has or is considering buying and should be welcomed by the salesperson. An objection is a reasonable concern on behalf of the prospect, an objection is not an unreasonable expectation and this is an important difference. Managing expectations and more particularly unreasonable expectations requires a different skill set and comes under a different heading. One very effective way to deal with objections is to preempt them as part of your presentation, you will be aware of the four or five concerns that...

Leadership is Motivation, the Leader is a Motivator We're not talking about the kind of motivator who arrives and excites everyone and then leaves. That is not motivation. Real motivation lasts longer than twenty-four hours. Real motivation is the key to effective leadership, and leadership is the key to effective motivation. When organizations establish quotas for their sales teams, they should involve their sales people in the process of the setting of their targets. Effective sales managers give their teams, an overview of the full picture and what the company is trying to achieve. Then, they work with each person to establish individual targets that will meet or exceed the corporate objectives...

> Using a proven selling process make selling easy and financially rewarding. Here is the selling process that has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for all sorts of industries all over the world. “Start with the end in mind” as Steven Covey of 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peoplesays.  So let’s start with booking the order and work towards where the sellingprocess starts. 1.  How to Get the Order? Get all the powerful people — especially the most powerful person to commit toyour offering.  This is the person with the ability to say yes and it happens.  Don’tbe fooled by those who can say no.  Anyone can get you eliminated.         a. If it is a business sale...

Find out why buying MLM leads is a shortcut to business disaster. We show you how to get fully qualified leads for free in this revealing report! The starting point is often the the biggest obstacle facing network marketers looking at capitalizing on the power of the internet to build there network marketing business.Where do you start especially if you have never used the resources available online and have been brought up on an MLM diet consisting of old school methods such as making a list and the dreaded "3 foot rule?"Article MarketingInter-network marketing is currently the buzz word in MLM circles as more and more frustrated MLMers realize that what they're...

Deals are closed when all the top people give their approvals. This article will help you overcome the first step in getting to the real decision maker and his influencers - knowing who they are. Identifying the Ultimate Decision Maker Determining the final decision maker and other high level influencers is one of the most difficult tasks for a sales person. Subordinates and info gatherers claim to be the final decision maker which confuses sales people. Others guard that information for fear the sales person will try to approach these high level influencers and the ultimate buyer. So not knowing who the most important people are makes it very challenging for the sales person to control the selling...

In a selling situation, "How can I help you," seems to be the spoken or implied question from one person to the other. Typically your prospect or customer will say, "I have a question or a problem," or "Can you help me?" or "I need some information on ...." As an experienced sales person, you'll listen for a few seconds, and think you've got it. Then you start selling, i.e. trying to persuade the person to buy your idea of the solution. Somehow sales people feel one sound-bite is all they need. It's similar to "Name that tune in 3 notes." This is a big mistake when trying to establish or enhance relationships. Here's why. First, the prospect doesn't know you understand, so s/he will have continual...

Everyone knows that "Those with the In, Win". Sales people want to be connected at the top, but usually struggle. Sales managers to presidents hope their sales people are connected and schmoozing with their customers' top executives. So this five part series is intended to help you easily and naturally sell at the executive level, and for more C-Suite Selling details, See Parts I - V Part II - Focus Getting to the top requires focus. Once you realize there is a monetary purpose to sell at the executive level, you must change your mindset when approaching sales opportunities. You must believe your mission is to eventually meet with the top relevant executives in order for you to make a sale. And if...

1. I learned long ago the only way to use low pricing as a strategy is if you are the low cost producer. In this way you can outlast your competitors by losing less. Once they are out of business, you'll own the market and can charge what you'd like. 2. The other thing I learned quickly from Hard Knocks University is that senior level executives (the people that make the final-final decision) do not care about the lowest price. They do care about affordability however. Don't get the two confused. 3. C-Levels and P&L leaders value business results more than they focus on price. Whoever is seen by the leader as a resource - helping him /her do business better, will get the contracts. What's tricky...

The idea of public speaking jobs is not a new one, although today there are probably more (or at least as many) jobs that relate to teaching public speaking than to actually doing it. At the same time, motivational and inspirational speaking has become big business, and performers, celebrities, successful sportsmen and women with a personal story of some sort to tell, can all make a lot of money if they have good, sound public speaking skills. Life coaches with good speaking skills and loads of confidence can also make a really decent living, even though they may not need to speak to groups of people very often. Many motivational and inspirational speakers base their businesses on life changing...

First a disclaimer. No matter how great your PowerPoint slides are, your presentation will fail if you do not have good preparation. In all my articles, I keep stressing the fact that PREPARATION is the key to all great presentations. The trouble with all professionals (me included) is that they are so pressed for time that they leave preparing for their presentations to the last minute. This is detrimental and will often jeopardize your effectiveness. Always leave enough time to prepare for your presentation. Consider it as an investment of your time, rather than a waste. So make sure you have put in some hours to prepare for that presentation. Ok back to PowerPoint Slides. Great PowerPoint...

Let's say you have a room full of people you are looking to train, or influence. You have a lot of information to convey to this group of people, how should you do it? What is the most cost effective, time appropriate, and let us not forget easiest way to do this? Better yet the most important question to ask one's self is how can I get this group of people interested, gain their trust and keep it throughout the process. In either instance, a speech would do, but it may come across as tedious or even worse, boring. If you have information that must be conveyed starting with a "boring" speech type proposal is certainly the quickest way to lose the attention of your audience. Once you lose the...

They're short and not generally substantive. That's why welcoming speeches don't tend to get the respect they deserve in the realm of speech making. Seen as what they are though: an important first chance to make a good public impression, and it becomes clear why this deceptively simple task should never be overlooked. Welcome speeches by definition should be more about the audience than the host. The aim is put invited guests at ease, get the proceedings off to a good start, and to set expectations for what is to come. As important as these goals are, welcome speeches are also opportunities to give the right impression--of the hosts and the individual speaker specifically. Rush through these...

Even if you are not a humorist, or maybe especially if you are not a humorist, if you can add a little humor to your speeches you will reap some major rewards. Humor can loosen up the audience, get them to like you, engage them, and actually improve the audiences learning and retention. Many people don't think they are funny, but by using the following seven tips you can add humor to any presentation. 1) Use humor you find funny - This one seems obvious, but in your quest to add humor you may try to think of lines that your audience will laugh at. While it is important to consider the audience, you must first start with things you think are funny. If you try to tell a joke or tell a story that you...

Toastmasters is a non-profit, educational organization dedicated to helping people develop their communication and leadership skills. If you're looking to join, you need to find a club - and not all are created equal. Clubs are like people with different personalities, so it's recommended to look for a match. Here is how to find a good club for yourself. Time and Location Timing and location are important. There are clubs that meet in the morning, or at lunch or in the evening. Each has its merits. Clubs that meet in the morning or at lunch tend to be a bit more formal. The reason is simple: people have to get to work, or came from work and need to return. Members of these clubs really learn the...

Last week my husband and I attended an awesome 4 day work conference! I decidedto sit in on both days of business presentations hoping there would be a nugget ortwo I could share with you. Presenting to an audience of 100 to 300 top producers were executives of a largecompany. While overall the presentations were good, three pet peeves of minewere running wild at times. I bring them to your attention in hopes that you won'thold your audiences of any size, whether 3 or 3,000, hostage to these presentationblunders, my top pet peeves. First - annoying fillers like "um," "uh," or even phrases like "you know." If youpreviously downloaded and read my Top 52 Presentation Tips, this is one of theplagues...

Voice is a powerful tool for presenters. Voice can make all the difference between success and failure when you're aiming to engage your audience. In sales meetings, company updates or technical meetings, it is critical to keep your audience involved and interested in your remarks. Learn how to stretch your voice by understanding the 5 P's of Voice Control including Pitch, Pace, Pause, Projection & Personality. Pitch Pitch refers to the ups and downs of your notes when you speak. We all have the ability to speak from a vocal range - which includes higher notes and lower notes. However, it takes great awareness and practice to notice your own pitch and to change it consciously. Why is pitch important...

When negotiating a salary increase, it is vital to select a favourable time for the manager and for the company in general. Begin by considering the company's economic position overall. If the country is in the middle of a recession for example, then do not make yourself seem foolish by asking for a pay rise the company cannot possibly give. Sometimes you just have to wait! It is also necessary to pick a time when your manager will be able to give you complete focus and attention without being too stressed, tired or distracted. It is true that your manager will always be busy so ask him/her for a set meeting in the morning when you are both fresh. Make sure this time is not right before a big sales...

Believe it or not, the best way to make sales is not to talk about how wonderful a product or service is or how great the features are because your prospects and your customers simply aren't interested. If you really want to be a successful and professional salesperson the best way to achieve that is to master the art of consultative selling. Consultative selling qualifies and listens to the customer to help them to buy what they need. It focuses on the needs of the customer and how to improve or benefit them in some way. It is the complete opposite to traditional methods of selling because it isn't about what the salesperson wants to sell them; it is about what the customer wants or needs to buy...

nication skills are definitely the most important skills required in anyone’s relationship whether it be intimate or family relationships, friend relationships or career relationships. So what we need is to find out what these skills consist of and start up with communication skills training. For building relationships that are good in quality, we need to be good communicators. Below I'll identify some areas of communication that most of us need to develop. I'm pretty sure you've noticed that a lot of people don’t even answer their phones and others hesitates to reply to an email while others have problems with direct communication and are avoiding this by writing lots of emails instead...

What Exactly Is Rapport? Rapport is the most important process in influencing others. It is vital if you want to maintain relationships. Without it, you are unlikely to achieve willing agreement to what you want. People who have excellent rapport with others create harmonious relationships based on trust and understanding of mutual needs. Rapport is the cornerstone of all mutually effective relationships. It needs constant vigilance to keep it alive and effective. Why Is It So Important? Rapport is similar to money - when you are short of it, it increases in importance. Without rapport you will reduce your chances of getting:o Unconditional agreement to your ideas and suggestionso Full commitment...

Capturing the attention of a top level person is extremely difficult. Holding it is even tougher. However, top level people do like to talk about themselves. They are usually happy to tell you what they want and why. These characters do not like people telling them what they need or should have, or why they should do something. They want to tell you what they want, but they won't say that in so many words. That's why you have to have some questions ready to get them talking. They will let you take the initiative, and in less than 2 minutes stick with you or tune you out. Therefore when meeting with a senior level person, your focus has to be that person. And the best way to focus on someone is to...

In the early 1900's con men would try to sell parts of the Brooklyn Bridge to immigrants in the USA. This is what coined the phrase, "If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you!" Then the Verrazano Narrows bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge formally opened between Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York, in November 1964. Think of this as a chance for a new bridge, one that leads to ethical selling. Would this new bridge serve to avoid any of these early unscrupulous and unethical scammers? What do ethics mean to you? When our actions are congruent with our moral values we behave ethically. Almost every profession has a code of ethics. Become familiar with yours. How often is your...

Cold call selling can be a challenge to say the least. Assuming you have the name of the decision-maker, how do you reach that person directly? An approach to use to get to the decision maker while cold calling Approach the receptionist in your pleasant, professional manner, make eye contact, smile, and say, "Hi. I'm here to see (decision-maker's name)." Then pull out your business card, present it to her, and repeat, "(Your name) with (your company)." The receptionist's typical response will be, "And may I ask what this is regarding?" To which you will reply, "Yes, I'm the new sales rep for the area and I'd simply like to take a moment to say hello and introduce myself." Another response you might...

If you suffer from low or no confidence, or whatever your self-confidence indicator may be, this can translate to something minor or major which leads to low sales. Just as cars have become more sophisticated with warning lights, a salesperson who is in tune with their own kind of indicator systems will know when their confidence is low. Low or no self-confidence can be disguised as procrastination, negative self-talk, or the three sister words in conversations: would have, could have, and should have. Procrastination may be an indicator of confidence in particular if you know what to do, how long it takes and can probably teach someone else! Like a brake light indicator being a warning that brakes...

Keeping track of your selling results will help you to pin point your problem areas and identify the key obstacles to your selling success. But how can you track your results in order to get the important feedback you need? 4 sales tips for tracking sales call results 1) Keep track of the number of sales calls you make. - Have a sheet of paper in which you keep count of your cold calls, follow-up calls, presentations, etc. You don't have to be fancy here, just mark them down so you know what your numbers are at the end of the day. 2) Keep track of what happens on each call. - For example, if you made ten cold calls, perhaps two weren't there, two you didn't get in to see, two weren't qualified, two...

One of the most successful sales turnarounds that I have been part of was when I was GM Sales & Marketing at ihug. There we had a very averagely performing sales team who could answer questions but couldn't close the sale. After six months of coaching, rewarding the good performers, changing the team around the results were still very similar. So we knew it was time to do something different. To turn things around we turned around our whole sales process. Instead of talking about closing the sale we changed the language to opening the sale. This focused the team on asking the right questions to qualify customers and identify needs. Opening sales turned the focus into starting a conversation...

Small business marketing is about being able to generate sales leads, as well as potentially create cross-sales; that is, being able to sell items other than those voluntarily chosen by the customer. Cross selling is an effective method in maximizing profit. However, it needs practice and a systematic process so as not to confuse customers. Here are the steps. Know your clients a little bit more. Rather than just treating them as a source of income, get to know them a little bit more. Maybe include a form that would include options for them to state where they would be using it, or perhaps what their interests are. Even if it sounds irrelevant with their purchase, every bit of information helps...

v> If marketing is all about fostering a relationship, then how does selling fit in? First learn to change the way you view selling, and then successfully market and sell your services and products by beginning to view yourself as sales ambassador for your company and for yourself. So if marketing is all about fostering a relationship, then how does selling fit in? Well, first off you've got to take a look at your view of selling. Selling is not being pushy, it isn't brainwashing and it's not getting people to do things they don't want to do. You need to think of sales as being of service to people. You have a great service or products that help people in some way and there are so many people who...

I am often asked, "since you have built 3 successful network marketing businesses, where are the best lead providers?". Let me share with you where I will not go to get leads! I will not approach friends and family in the first 90 days of starting your business and this includes people you work with in other businesses. First of all, this will build a lot of resentment and anger, and often they will want to see the proof of the business and you would only be lying to them because you do not have proof. Most of the people in the network marketing companies will dismiss this article if you approach them and say it is not true. They are building teams and want a long lasting business and want others to...