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	<title>Sales is more science than anything. You can use imagination and creativity, but after using tools available to you. With the proper tools and techniques you’ll replace guesswork with success. And that is where we come into the picture. 
Alen Majer consults and trains businesses and salespeople on a variety of topics ranging from science to art of selling - from improving sales process, prospecting activities, and successful needs discovering, to developing better customer relationships, improving credibility and relationship building skills so much needed in 21st century selling environmen</title>
	<link>http://www.buildyourownbusiness.biz/author/index/1381/Alen-Majer.php</link>
	<description>Sales is more science than anything. You can use imagination and creativity, but after using tools available to you. With the proper tools and techniques you’ll replace guesswork with success. And that is where we come into the picture. 
Alen Majer consults and trains businesses and salespeople on a variety of topics ranging from science to art of selling - from improving sales process, prospecting activities, and successful needs discovering, to developing better customer relationships, improving credibility and relationship building skills so much needed in 21st century selling environmen - Latest business
news &amp; management advice on how best to build your own business -
Free, independent business articles on Strategy, eBusiness, Change
Management &amp; much, much more.</description>
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	<pubDate>Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:19:03 +0000</pubDate>
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      <title><strong>What can you learn from Sherlock Holmes?</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[If you read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories, it will interest you in the quality of observation which the salesperson must cultivate. Sherlock Holmes had a remarkable ability for finding out what sort of people he was dealing with, through powers of close observation. The author, Conan Doyle, takes pains to explain in every story that Sherlock Holmes did nothing by chance, and did not rely upon any invisible, peculiar, or mystic power to aid him in making his deductions. He had simply cultivated a remarkable shrewdness of observation.

This is a quality that the salesperson must cultivate. It will enable you to understand your customer.

One of the first things a salesperson must do is to find out certain facts about his customer which are sure to be necessary or valuable to him in his work. These facts will vary in different cases. There are certain facts that it is usually necessary to know, such as the name and address, when they are essential to the transaction or needed for future reference. There are certain facts of personality and business conditions in respect to which no two customers will be exactly alike, and these facts (especially such of them as show a difference from the normal on the part of the customer) are of extraordinary importance to the salesperson.

In short, the salesperson must understand his customer, and his understanding must be based on facts.]]></description>
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      <title><strong>You Always Know How Good You Are</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[In sales you’ll always know where you stand. No longer do you have to torment yourself with the question of your performance. At the end of the day, your sales figures will be the yardstick that indicates how well you’ve done in selling. You’ll always know how your performance was for that day, for each and every customer. The proof is in the purchase of the product that you’re selling.

No-one can fake a purchase or lie to you about how great your pitch was. Customers aren’t concerned with stroking your ego just to pacify you so that they can make a quick escape. If you’re great at what you do, they buy your product. It’s as simple as that. And if you’ve really impressed them, they’ll keep coming back for more. And they’ll tell their family and friends about you and refer them to you for your excellent service.

That’s essentially what they talk about – how great you are at performing in the sales arena. They don’t care what kind of physical shape you’re in either. They don’t sit around and chat about your physique or snigger about your six-pack that’s been left abandoned for years. In fact, most of the best sales guys are usually out of shape. You don’t have to concern yourself with sweating it out at the gym.

As a successful sales guru, you’ve got the customers coming in already, in droves. Because you don’t have to be concerned about your fitness in order to be a brilliant salesperson, you don’t have to feel embarrassed by selling with the lights on! In fact, if you turned the lights off, most of your clients might start feeling a little concerned about their own safety and well being. Leave the lights on; forget about the gym; in sales you can be a success regardless of what shape you’re in.

As well, what makes all of this a lot easier is that a new sales job comes with an instruction manual – complete with graphs and pictures and everything that you might need to come to grips with the basics. Imagine how e ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>Why Selling Is Better Than Sex - Part One</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[The world’s oldest profession involves selling. One might even argue about which came first – the selling or the sex? In fact, selling and sex are so closely related that succeeding at either one of them can be euphoric, addictive, and good fun.
Some people might like to argue that selling is not better than sex. They believe it’s the other way round. In this post (and other following this one) I will give you many different reasons why selling IS better than sex.

For a start, it’s okay to make a sale in public.
In fact, the more people that witness the sale you’re making and the product you’re providing, the better! Also, when they see first-hand the customer’s satisfaction at having had an excellent sales experience, it inspires them to think about making their own purchase. This leads to word-of-mouth referrals where you earn a reputation for being the best at what you do. You become known as the expert in your line of work. But sex in public? Well, that may just get you into a lot of trouble. And let’s face it – a reputation for being promiscuous is perhaps not the way you want to go.

This brings us to the next point: that it is perfectly legal to sell professionally. The Ten Commandments don’t say anything about not selling. Yes, one of the commandments is “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, but Moses did not climb Mount Sinai to receive the instruction “Thou shalt not sell”. On the contrary, selling, bartering and trading were an essential source of income for many families, even in Moses’ time.
Nor is selling listed as one of the seven cardinal sins and the Pope makes no mention about the hazards of selling prior to marriage.

With a humorous twist, my posts will take you through the essentials of successful selling, illustrating that business can be fun and should be fun. Love what you do and do what you love. It’s about passion…it’s about creating the pathway for your own success and doing it with enthusiasm and  ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>So you think you can sell?</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[Before you begin to sell, you will need to decide who you’re going to sell to. This means finding your Target Market. If you know who you’re selling to, you immediately have the advantage of being focused on a specific market and knowing who and what you need to research.

In your search for a Target Market, try to identify those that have a major problem and who are willing to spend money in order to fix it. Straight away, this gives you the advantage of knowing that your customer has the funds to pay for the excellent product or service that you can offer. It’s no use walking in with guns blazing, shooting off fantastic selling techniques when your client hasn’t got the resources to make the purchase.

Investigate, research, explore.

You need to select a market that you can identify with. This will be the place where you spend your days fulfilling your dreams – you need to be comfortable and able to enjoy yourself, and able to identify with your customers. This will benefit you as much as it will benefit them.

For example, it would be fruitless to try and market a Rap CD at an old-age home. For starters, your audience will never identify with your appearance (most likely resembling your most favored Rap artist). And secondly, a group of octogenarians is less likely to scramble over one another in order to purchase a CD that doesn’t qualify as “music” to them and certainly doesn’t have any lyrics that they can actually understand.

Focus. This seems basic, but in the frenzied rush to accumulate sales, this detail may be overlooked.

By finding your Target Market before you get ready to sell, you can save yourself a lot of time and money that would otherwise be wasted on inappropriate targets.

Another important factor in selecting the correct market segment for your product is finding out if you have a competitive advantage over your rivals who are in the same selling industry as you.

As part of your research, there are other fa ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>Make People Want to Buy</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[Whenever a new commodity appears, we ridicule it, and oppose it, and refuse to buy it at any price. Then the salesperson trains his energies on us. We fight for a while, and finally we surrender. But we give no credit, or glory, to the salesperson. We walk up to the counter and buy the commodity, remarking to the clerk that it is just exactly what we needed for the past twenty years.

It is not true that new products are manufactured to supply the demand.

There is no demand. Both the demand and the goods have to be manufactured. The public has always held fast to its old-fashioned discomforts, until the salesperson persuaded it to let go.

    * There was no demand for the Railroad, and for years many people believed that thirty miles an hour would stop the circulation of the blood.
    * There was no demand for the Steamboat, and when Brunei drove the first boat by steam on the Thames, he became so unpopular that the London hotels refused to give him a room.
    * There was no demand for the Sewing machine, and the first machine that Howe put on exhibition was smashed to pieces by a Boston mob.
    * There was no demand for the Telegraph, and Morse had to plead and beg before ten Congresses before he received any attention.
    * There was no demand for the Air-brake, and Westinghouse was called a fool by every railroad expert, because he asserted that he could stop a train with wind.
    * There was no demand for Gas-light, and all the candle-burners sneered at Murdoch for trying to have a lamp without a wick.
    * There was no demand for the Reaper, and McCormick preached his gospel of efficient harvesting for fourteen years before he sold his first hundred machines.

No, it is not true, as learned theorists have said that every great invention springs into life because it is demanded by the nation. It springs into life and nobody wants it. It is the Ugly Duckling. Everybody prefers ten cents to it, until a few salespeople take it in hand and expl ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>What to do when the heart buys and the mind prevents the purchase?</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[Having discovered the need to identify objections and deal with them appropriately, it is also important to keep in mind that objections should not be handled aggressively. Because there are many different reasons for objections being presented, each one must be handled in its own way, on its own merit. You need to understand the nature of an objection if you wish to address it properly and with the right amount of care.

The nature of an objection is based on the fact that the buyer’s heart and his mind are engaged in a struggle. As we know, it’s the heart that does the buying and the mind that prevents the purchase. Therefore, when a buyer is making an objection, it’s clear that his mind is creating an obstacle for the bit of interest that has been stirred in his heart. In other words, he IS interested in your product. If he wasn’t, he would have walked away. But the fact that there is an objection means that his heart and mind are competing in a battle of wills over the validity of the purchase.

If an objection has been made in good faith, it may simply be that the prospect is interested in the products but hasn’t the means available to buy them. His common sense (mind) may be trying to prevail over his desire (heart) to make the purchase; but only because he knows that he should keep his money aside for a more essential need. This is a difficult resistance for any salesperson to overcome. However, it may well be in the prospect’s best interest to purchase your product as opposed to buying a new pair of shoes or some other essential item. It is your responsibility to demonstrate this to him, in the appropriate manner.

Again, if the prospect has objected with good intentions, it may be that he does have a strong desire to purchase your product but he thinks that it’s not a wise decision to make as there are other essentials that he needs to buy. Subconsciously, he’s wistfully hoping that his heart is right and his mind is wrong.

Let’s  ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>Become an Expert at Handling Price Objections</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[The best way to handle any objection is to anticipate it and, if possible, make sure that it never intrudes into the sales discussion. Once a thought has been expressed by a prospect it becomes harder to eradicate. This is because the prospect has placed himself on record and is unlikely to recede easily from his position.

Objections that are raised to price are probably the most frequent of all honest reasons for prospects refusing to buy. It’s important to understand where the price objection is coming from, before you can handle it effectively.

Sometimes a prospect will object to price because it is simply more than he can afford to pay. The products or services are too expensive and the buyer can only afford something of a cheaper grade. As the salesperson, it is your duty to enrich the prospect with the knowledge of how the purchase of a quality item will be more economical in the long-term as opposed to buying the cheaper article of a lesser grade.

Scripts:
    - “Compared to what?”
    - “You know that our quality is the highest you can find, which means that you pay much less over the life of the product. The higher quality saves you money in the long run. Why not order today?”
    - “If our products were cheaper, would you want it? If yes, let’s find the way you can afford it!”

Alternatively, an item which is more expensive usually offers additional features that may convince the buyer of the validity of such a purchase. In other words, there are times when a quality item will speak for itself. At other times it is up to you, as the salesperson, to educate the buyer of all the features and the value it holds, before he can make an informed decision.

Script:
    - “Yes, we can lower the price right now, however you need to decide on what options to cut from our proposal.”

An objection to price doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the end of the line. A buyer may be in a position to arrange alternative funding, if he see ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>Are You an Order Taker or an Order Maker?</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[Consider the following letter by an active head of one of the largest software company in America:

“Results are the only things that count. We are perfectly willing to pay a salesperson $100,000 a year if they deliver the goods; we are willing to pay $750,000 a year if that person delivers, and a person’s earnings from $7500 a month up to almost anything is in their own hands.”

The heads of ninety-nine out of every hundred companies employing salespeople reflects that sentiment. Often the main limit to the salesperson’s earning power is a self-imposed one.

I am sure you know the question in the mind of the person starting out with a cell phone in one hand and an expense check in the other is: “How can I sell?”

The question in the mind of the salesperson producing now is: “How can I increase my sales?”

Understand in advance, please, that we offer no theories. The source of the methods offered herein derives from the operation of thousands of successful salespeople in varied lines the country over.

These people are working more than the average salesperson because they are better than the average. And here is what they have found produce real results.

Are You an Order Taker or an Order Maker?

Let’s take a look at the order-taker, not as a negative example, and not as an object of pity, but only to make a point.
Chris the “order-taker” visits on Smith, Brown, Jones, James, and Robinson. They are not in the market. Then she opens her portfolio in Harrison’s store and Harrison buys.

Mind you, she didn’t sell anything. Harrison was ready; the order taker had the goods, showed them and took the order. Why? Simply because the prospect was in the market, ready to buy.

She encountered a favorable situation; she was standing directly under the apple with a bushel basket when it dropped from the tree. That is what makes it possible for the order-taker to exist. If the order-taker calls on enough people they are bound to f ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>Differentiate Prospects from Suspects</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[If you want to be a successful sales person and to close the deal, very important part is to be in front of your customers at the exact time when they are on the market for goods or services. You can find companies they are on the market now, or you can put them in the market.

The only thing you can accomplish is to lose a precious time chasing prospects who are not interested for your product, or they are not a fit for your products or services at all.

Many unsuccessful sales people spend their time with customers who are not even close to sales process and to buying, but poorly trained sales person still contact them regularly simply because they are in pipeline and they need to fill their day somehow. Talking to that kind of prospects is just a waste of your and their time.

When you are selling you need to differentiate and trigger events will make this possible. You will have tools to create the opportunity for you, and not just in the visible market where customers are actively looking for provider or supplier, but also in the invisible market - you put them in the market, you are making customers realize that they are on the market now. Without trigger events you can’t force customers to meet with you because you will be just one of many sales guys knocking on their door.

Here are two examples of trigger events:

    * Your research shows some trigger events like hiring new 15-20 sales reps or changes in upper management levels: this clearly sends out messages that the company is in need of new office furniture or new computers with software, or maybe a new benefits plan for employees.
    * Thousands of corporate turnarounds occur every year. You may have read about a few of them in your local newspaper, but that’s not enough. There are companies in a turnaround phase that affect sales in your area all the time. I suggest keeping abreast of the New York Times or other newspapers like that in your region. Their business page carries a number ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>How to present successfully - 2nd part</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[In my previous article about presenting, I was talking how we can’t all be at our best every day or every hour.

But if you get your best possible presentation down on paper and then firmly entrench it in the back of your head, you’ll be certain to make a better average presentation than you ever have before. It will also give you confidence during off days.

Now, knowing what you do about your own proposition, if you were in your prospect’s shoes you’d want it, wouldn’t you? Well then your task is simple; you have only to make your prospect feel the same way about it that you do yourself and the order is yours.

And how are you going to do this?

By conveying to your prospect the very things that have made you feel the way you do. You can hardly expect the prospect to view matters the way you do in the first place. If they did, their orders would be coming in through the Internet or the mail.
That’s what you are there for - to make them feel the way you do and arouse their desire.

Fear – Haste - Uncertainty

    * Fear is a dangerous four-letter word - an emotional response to impending or imagined danger that is tied to anxiety. They’re all enemies of the successful presentation. Why should you fear? The worst that can happen to you is not to get the order. And you can’t lose anything that you haven’t got.
    * Haste, why should you hurry?
      You must make your listener understand in order to get the order. You certainly can’t make them understand by rattling off your presentation as if you were paid by the number of words you got out per minute. Listen and record yourself sometime. Are you interesting to listen to? Are you clear and with a voice of different tones?
    * Uncertainty?
      You can’t be uncertain. You know too much of the merit of what you’re selling to waver one second from the absolute knowledge that you are there to benefit the person you’re talking to.

You’re too strong to let fear, haste, ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>Nobody likes to be sold</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[Practically every sale made to a new buyer may be properly classified as easy, difficult, or impossible. You’ll readily agree to that. But will you agree to this? Sales are not easy, difficult, or impossible according to the character or mood of the person you’re talking to.

What you say or do during the first few minutes of your conversation is the one thing which largely controls the later course of the sale. It doesn’t take brains to make a sale difficult or impossible. Your task is to pave the path and make it easy. And it’s just as easy to make a sale easy, as it is to spoil it altogether.

The whole object of your approach is to arouse fully your prospect’s interest, and bring them to the point where they want to see your product and hear your proposition.

That is the first specialized situation - to make the person you’re talking to really want particulars - arouse their interest and put them in a buying frame of mind.

How are you going to go about creating this situation?

In the first place, there is a factor in selling which few men seem to have recognized; yet it is a block over which we stumble time and time again, when by knowing that it was there we could just as easily walk around it.

This stumbling block is this:
The average person’s instinctive antagonism to being sold.

It exists and is a force with which we have to contend just as surely as the wind blows, the rain falls, and the sun shines. The minute a person realizes that you have something to sell, they instinctively - without realizing it - throw up the mental barrier.

Though they will hardly put it in words or even admit it. More likely they will respond this way in their mind:

“This person has something to sell. He thinks he is going to make me take it. I’ll show him he is wrong. I will not buy.”

You see the idea? The mere fact that you are a salesperson influences your prospect partly to make up their mind that they are not going to buy. This ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>How to present successfully</strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[In your approach you have won the prospect’s interest. You have put them in the mental position where they are ready to purchase if you prove up your claims. And you can prove up these claims because you made them, knowing in advance that they were merely a preface to showing your proposition.

What is the mission of your presentation?

To create desire for your products. That’s all. And the minute that is accomplished, the order is yours for the taking.

Let your presentation be organized, well thought out, with a beginning, middle, and an end. Don’t take any chances in your presentation. Know what you are doing.

Once a friend of mine was demonstrating a new steam cleaner to an interested contractor. He failed to ground the unit as he usually did. The lesson is still in his mind ten years later: his prospective buyer leaned against the machine, receiving an electric shock that did not hurt him, but it sure killed the potential sale.

The rule that a person travels familiar roads more rapidly and surely than they can pick their way along unknown paths absolutely applies to demonstrating.
Consequently, prepare and practically memorize a standard presentation of your proposition; have it in such shape, like a pilot’s check list, so that your mind is dealing with the person you are talking to. And if emergencies arise, instead of groping for something to say, you have already rehearsed for it.

The best speeches, the greatest orations, the ones that have made history, have in the great majority of cases been prepared beforehand and carefully memorized.

I don’t mean to say that you should write out a presentation or demonstration, then commit it to memory, and try to repeat it word for word. Just know it well. But I do say that you should have a standard practice in presenting or demonstrating your proposition. Again, remember the pilot’s checklist. No matter how many times you’ve flown, no matter how smart and capable you are, following a ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>Hit or Miss doesn't Work in Selling </strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[Many sales are lost because salespeople assume they know what the customer wants. Sales people like to made assumptions of knowledge about what the buyer wants and needs, or sometimes more important why the buyer might be motivated to buy. Using one’s instincts and sixth sense is fine in the equation of success, but it should be only part of your expertise.

Consequently, through unorganized, hit-or-miss methods, his cost of selling is high simply because his methods are not as efficient as they should be.

This does not mean you shouldn’t use your instincts and training well. But it does mean that your sales assumptions must be based in a finding of facts, not guesses.

Using the dart game in the sales profession can lead to failure. You have limited time on your sales call to a prospective buyer and your darts must hit their mark. It’s even more crucial when you use the phone for your sales prospecting activities: many telephone sales calls miss their mark as being off-the-shelf calls that aren’t developed with a specific buyer in mind. Dartboard selling is a quick way to go broke.

Top notch salespeople advise that 75% of a successful sale is due to the pre-flight work. You must make sure you know what direction you want to go in, and you have to ask precise questions that will lead you to confirm needs you recognized through trigger events. You must know what direction to fly before your takeoff.

Most sales people out there are making a huge mistake meeting (or talking over the phone) with their clients unprepared. They think it is enough to schedule the meeting and they will work their magic and close the deal. They will try to break the ice with the customer by talking about the stuff in his office. Then the next misstep is to ask a few questions and not even wait for the answers, but to start with the same old sales pitch.

This kind of salesperson knows all the answers and few features and benefits later they will ask for the business. A ..]]></description>
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      <title><strong>If you live by price - you will die by price </strong></title>
      <description><![CDATA[If your prospect does not see the value in your product or service, and if the only difference between you and the competitors is in pricing, you didn’t do a good job as a sales person. The main description of your position inside the company is to create the value, not just to show your price list.

Teaching and educating customers is no longer enough, giving them information about your products or services is no longer necessary. They can get them by themselves, without ever talking to you or your company, and know more about your product and positioning on the market then you.

If they know so much about you, how can you try to sell them the same product without knowing their business situation or their needs?

Remember that customers are sophisticated; they either have or believe they can get product information more reliably on their own. Information is readily available through many different sources, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Internet is full of different forums, blogs, and review or research websites where they can get information about your product easily.

Customers don’t just want a specific product; most of the times they want to solve their pain point or business issues. A customer in today's competitive sales environment does not expect to educate the sales professional about their business.  Therefore, you must already possess a solid understanding of the customer's industry, competitors, and business direction.

Developing such a comprehensive view of the customer is a task that requires extensive researching and education to get an overall picture of the customer's business industry. The modern sales person needs to focus on understanding the customer's business initiatives, strategic plans, IT environment, and key customer preferences.

If you are still seeing yourself as someone who is there to educate customers, you are living in the past. The time of product-centric sales is gone. Welcome to customer-centric approach in sale ..]]></description>
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