Too many times I see salespeople who don’t assume the sale when a new prospect enters. They sit back and they wait for their customer to prove that they’re a real buyer. It’s not the customer’s job to prove themselves to you! It’s YOUR job to expect the sale each and every time.

I’ve always hated the saying “The customer is always right”. As career salespeople, we know that customers are OFTEN wrong. And sometimes, they’re just flat out rude. Today I want to talk about the unfortunate soul who has to follow your last bad customer.

I’d like to make a slightly preposterous claim: If you know your clients well enough, they will show you how to sell them a home. I also suggest that one of the biggest problems salespeople face is having been taught an approach that centers on the product rather than on the prospect. At the core of this issue is a lack of understanding about why our clients are standing in front of us in the first place. 

It happened. You said something stupid during a sales conversation. Now what? The fact of the matter is that sales process can be hard, and you’re gonna make mistakes, and things aren’t always going to go right. It’s not how you do when things are going perfectly, it’s how you recover.

People, especially salespeople and those who manage them, often use the phrase “win-win” and negotiation in the same breath. “Win-win” is a noble concept. It’s nice when everyone wins. But win-win should not be your primary objective at the sales negotiation table.

The International Builders’ Show is the largest annual conference for the new home building industry in the world. It’s an opportunity for those of us in Sales and Marketing to gather at Sales Central to “polish our skills, learn new tricks from industry experts and develop new strategies.” And while the show always provides a rich time of  learning, when I reflect back on the time I’ve spent at IBS, I am most fond of the time watching networks expand and relationships develop over the years.

Remember the good old days when people actually liked getting e-mail? You would send one to someone and they would OPEN IT! Over time, e-mail has lost a bit of it’s luster BUT it can still be a very effective sales tool if it’s used effectively. I’ve got a few suggestions to help you with that.

Every author of every book on negotiating is quick to point out that in business and life, everything is being negotiated and that as humans, we are negotiating naturally at almost every point in our daily lives. But despite this blinding flash of the obvious, despite the fact that salespeople are required to negotiate as part of the job, the brutal and undeniable truth is that most salespeople suck at negotiating.

Studies have shown that we spend most of the time thinking about the future. We’re imagining what our lives will be LATER. As a salesperson, how can you help your customer imagine a future with your product?

Research shows that the longer someone stays in the buying cycle without making a purchasing decision, the less likely they are to buy. Long buying cycles are good for absolutely no one. To make matters worse, many sales professionals unnecessarily elongate the process.