Ten of My Most Popular Posts for Sales Leaders

I’m very pleased that traffic on this blog has grown significantly since I created it last April.  With that in mind, I suspect some of you who are new to this blog may have missed some of the earlier posts. 

Here are the most popular, based upon this blog’s Top Posts stats:

1. Observing a Sales Training Program (Part 1)
2. Sales Training Company Revenue Models
3. Come On, Dave. Which Is The Best Sales Training Company?
4. The Fragmented Sales Training Industry
5. Sales Training Companies from a Unique Perspective (Part 1)
6. Sales Kick-off Meetings: Are Results on the Agenda?
7. What’s Wrong With Articles Containing Sales Tips?
8. Your Customer Is Learning How to Kick Your Butt
9. Selling Through the Customer’s Organization (Chart)
10. Sales Performance Measurement
11. We Live in a World That Requires Revenue (Humorous Bonus!)

Enjoy.

Competing on Price

There are companies that must compete on price in many, most, or even all deals.  That’s a function of what they are selling, into what markets, and against which competitors.  With that being said, too many companies often wind up competing on price because they simply aren’t very good at selling.

The “sales ineffectiveness” affliction that so many companies suffer from is apparent during my initial conversation with sales leaders and their marketing counterparts.  It takes about 30 seconds before the word “price” is uttered—and not by me.  As I dig deeper they tell me that their biggest challenge is “being forced to compete on price.”

“Forced by whom?” I ask.  Most often the answer is “our competition.”  Sometimes it’s “the customer.”  When you think about it, both answers are pretty much the same.

The discussion goes on… “We do a great job building relationships, understanding the customer and selling our unique value,” they continue.  “Then, at the last minute the competition slashes their price and we’re forced to beat it or lose the deal.” They may have done a “great job” with a number of things, but competitive selling isn’t one of them.

Here are some sales leader-level questions for you to answer:

What’s Wrong With Articles Containing Sales Tips?

How many sales people do you think regularly seek out tips about selling on websites, in magazines, books, newsletters, etc.?  We have not done any research on this (if someone has, let me know), but I would expect the answer is: “a lot.”

What’s wrong with it?  Same answer: a lot.

Here’s why.  Many salespeople think that these tips (almost all of them are tactics) are all they need to win.  Read enough articles and books and grab enough of these skills, they think, and they’ll never lose another deal.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think that many of the hundreds of sales experts out there have something valuable to say.  (I certainly felt that way when I wrote How Winners Sell, as well as a hundred or so articles.)  Sure, some have copied what others have done before them and represented that as their own.  And sales tips that other so-called experts are writing or speaking about have been proved ineffective years ago.  But all in all, I’m not questioning the advice.  That’s not the issue.