How To Sales #17: How to Sell Using Benefits (now with extra Milton)

Speeds and feeds are for the weak. Benefits (and Swingline staplers) are king.

How To Sales #15: Increase Sales Credibility with High Value Touches

*Ring Ring* -pickup- “Company G, Frank speaking.” “Hi Frank, this is Christian from HowToSales- I just wanted to check in to see how you were doing. Is there anything I can do to help out? “Nope, we’re good.” “Ok, great. Thanks!” -click- What a waste of time- for both of us. Low value touches like […]

How To Sales #13: How to Use CRM to Ruin Your Sales

Let’s face it- you’re too busy. You’ve been working hard and your account list is starting to look like the yellow pages for your territory. With all that work and money you’re making- how are you supposed to have time for the important things- like napping under your desk? Here’s some tips so you can […]

How To Sales #12: The Fundamentals- Sales Skills for 21st Century Selling

Thanks to Cole (@COLESLAW927) for this week’s topic. I’ve talked before about core sales skills and how to develop personal sales strategies– and today I want to talk about tools and processes. The most persuasive, highly skilled salesperson in the world will do a poor job without the tools and habits that lead to success. […]

How To Sales #11: How to Negotiate (the boring, effective way)

Negotiation as a sales skill is commonly thought of as the ability to sway your customer onto your way of thinking- regardless of needs. Sleazy salespeople are experts at this. They use cheap conversational tricks and common logical fallacies to try and force agreement and get the win. Fear tactics and selective inflexibility are their […]

How To Sales #9: 5 Reasons Why Your B2B Inbound Leads Suck

Admit it, they do. Whether you bought them to line up to your cold-callers or they volunteered their information and requested a callback- you still need to improve your hit rate. Here’s 5 things you’re doing wrong- and how to do them better. 1. Your qualification isn’t qualified. As I’ve said in previous posts, proper […]

How To Sales #8: How to be a Scumbag Salesperson

We’ve all met them- the used car guy who refuses to tell you the price until you’re at the negotiating table. The telephone solicitor who calls promising free cruises during dinner- twice. The office jockey who bounces from job to job, promising whatever it takes to make the sale- and then running for the door […]

How To Sales #5: Sales is Not a Numbers Game

If you’ve worked in sales- especially business to business sales- for more than 5 minutes, you likely know all about big, cold calling/email campaigns. If you haven’t- it usually goes something like this: Someone buys a list of contact information. The list gets handed off to a salesperson, who is supposed to turn those leads […]

How To Sales #1: So, You Want to Be a Salesperson.

Liar. Nobody wants to be a salesperson. Sure, we love the money, or the chase, or the competition, and some of us even love the power- but no one wants to be a salesperson. Being in sales is awful. You’ll spend endless hours doing repetitive/mindless tasks, listening to complaint after complaint, and you’ll get rejected more than […]