Why It Pays To Be Honest In Sales By Matthew Coppola
To many business people, the belief is that honesty pays, but not enough. To survive in the cut throat world of business and sales, many feel that they need to lie or bend the truth to get anywhere in business.
But is that the case? Does being deceitful, dishonest and untruthful in sales and business really the answer to gaining success? In this article I am not just referring to small amounts of dishonesty or bending the truth, I am talking about all types and degrees of dishonesty no matter how big or small they are.
There is no such thing as a white lie. A lie is a lie.
Any type of dishonesty is created by greed for dishonest gain. Greed leads many business owners and sales people to lie. But you may justify by reasoning that “its business” and “business is business”. Many sales people even put the responsibility back on to the customer, saying that its the customers end decision and “let the buyer beware”.
But, can a theif justify his robbery by saying “let the victims beware”? Of course not! Same with in sales. If a salesperson is dishonest and makes a sale, they are just as bad as that theif. Both the thief and the salesperson have been dishonest.
The theif is dishonest by taking someones possessions without their permission and not telling them. The salesperson is dishonest because they sold the customer a product and not told them the truth about the product. The salesperson sold the product knowing all too well that if the customer knew the truth, they would not have bought the product in the first place.
Yes, honesty in business and sales may require greater time and hard work, but the satisfaction and joy from honesty and truthfullness far outweigh that from dishonesty!
But is this view realistic? Can salespeople who need to meet weekly targets follow it? Well yes they can! To illustrate, lets use an example of an employment placement coach whose job it is to place all types of people into employment, even those who are not the most preferred people to employ.
When you are advocating a candidate for a job, you may find it pays to be honest and upfront with the employer in the beginning. If you hide the negative points about a job seeker and just focus on whats good about them, the employer will be trying to evaluate them and the reasons as to why they are unemployed.
Not only that, but if they actually get the job and their negative side is seen by the employer, it will not only affect the security of their employment but also affect the employers view of you and any other candidate you recommend to the employer in the future.
How To Increase Sales Volume
How to increase sales volume is something that just about every business owner, sales manager, and sales professional cares deeply about. And while it might seem that sometimes you have to be more lucky than good for everything to work, the reality is that there are clear things that can be done to improve sales volume.
Clearly Identify the Target Prospect
One step that often does not get enough attention in developing a sales strategy or even during execution is spending a decent amount of time on identifying what your target and ideal prospect look like. While you can likely sell your products to a large audience and many different types of prospects, in order to get your sales strategy and execution in hyper-drive, stop to think about the prospects that fit best and then have a laser focus on that segment.
When trying to identify the ideal prospect to go after, consider characteristics like industry, size, geography, title, attitude, income, current processes and systems, etc. Once have these characteristics mapped out, try to maximize your time with prospects that match up well with these.
Increase Interactions with Prospects
One of the most important ways to improve how to increase sales volume is to increase interactions and communications with prospects. At the end of the day, you can have the best product at the best price and if the prospects do not know about you, you cannot expect any revenue to come from them.
Increasing interactions with prospects can be driven by your sales and marketing strategies. From the sales perspective, proactive tactics like cold calling and professional networking are effective strategies to increase interactions and scheduling appointments with prospects. On the marketing side, tactics like search engine optimization and use of social media can increase the inbound flow of leads and help to impact how to increase sales volume.
Effectively Qualify Prospects
Time is one of your most valuable resources and you must protect this resource by only spending time with prospects that have a high probability of purchasing when working on how to increase sales volume. Just as prospects will be looking at you to determine how good you fit with them, you should spend time qualifying them to see how well they fit with you.
When working to qualify prospects, ask them questions about their needs, their ability to purchase, and their decision making authority to measure how much of a probability exists that they are going to purchase from you. If their questions are not what you want to hear, you may need to either move on or make the decision to not spend a tremendous amount of time trying sell to them.
Find Pain
At then end of the day, prospects mainly make changes and purchases to resolve a pain. If there is no pain, there is not a great need to change and this can make selling to them difficult. You still can sell to a prospect that does not have pain but these are the types of prospect that can stand to sit on the fence and disappear when it is time to pull the trigger.
To improve revenue, focus on trying to find pain that the prospect is experiencing in the areas where your products and services impact and focus on this throughout the sales cycle. If there is no pain, there may be a decision to move on to improve how to increase sales volume.
[Top]Home Decorating With Gas Fireplace And Feng Shui
The modern trends of fireplaces have evolved but decorating homes are still based on the balance of the elements to successfully harmonize any living space. in feng shui, balancing of the five elements fire, water, wood, earth and metal, are important when you are remodeling or decorating your home. . If you are buying a stove for sale, obviously you are adding an element of fire into your home. Any space with a gas fireplace will certainly exude a fiery element that emits heat embracing an ambiance and the people within it with warmth and console. This is ideal to heighten an intimacy of couples that want to restore a broken relationship.
When you search for a stove for sale or any other gas fireplace, you should consider the space and your existing furniture at home that will sit next to it. According to the feng shui masters, the south wall of your home is the best place to locate a gas fireplace. You may also locate a gas fireplace to any other areas of the house but be certain not to place them on the Northwest or the middle left part of your home. This area represents family and health. Placing the fire in this area can risk your health and relationships. Clean the space where you want to locate the fireplace; this way you do not get in the way for the heat energy to flow around the house, hence, you are not obstructing the Chi.
If you are placing your gas fireplace at the center of your home, be certain to balance it with other elements such as water. Finding a stove for sale can also weaken your health if you place it on the center of your home since it also represents the center of your body. Being exhausted with too much heat can ultimately weaken the body. Try incorporating water, wood, earth and metal elements. It does not literary tells you place a swimming pool next to gas fireplace for a water element. A small fountain or an aquarium will do but you can also use paintings or photographs with rivers, falls and the like. Other water element includes black furniture and mirrors. Placing a mirror next or near your gas fireplace is good to harmoniously balance and prevents the depletion of energy around the house. If it is a wood element, photographs or paintings of trees can help or if you can add real plants to show something that is alive and growing. Adding a television near the gas fireplace may not be a good idea. But if you and the rest of the family are fond of watching either shows on TV or DVDs, be certain to keep it hidden after use. You may use a cabinet to seal them or a projector screen that you can roll over when youre done watching.
No matter how expensive or cheap a stove for sale can be, proper placement should always be considered. Ask a feng shui expert to help you deal with the movement of the Chi. At the end of the day whats more important is your health and your familys happiness beyond all the beautiful decors and furniture around the house.
[Top]Five Challenges Of Being An Inside Sales Manager
Being an inside sales manager comes with many challenges and effectively dealing with those can be the difference that leads to success.
1. Interviewing
Just like any position that a manager looks to fill, selecting the right resources for inside sales positions can be challenging. This is because cold calling and selling over the phone takes a particular type of person and you never really know how a sales resource is going to work out in terms of results and length of employment.
By improving the interview process, a manager can create a tremendous improvement on the overall sales operation and results. Using tools and processes to effectively screen applicants to identify the best matched applicants will help with the interviewing challenge.
2. Training
Once the inside sales resource has been hired, they will need to be trained. Telesales can be a challenging job for a sales person for many different reasons that just simply come with the job. As a result, there is likely a need to give sales training, product training, and company system training to every new inside sales person.
With a level of turnover being present with every sales position, an inside sales manager does not want to spend too much time and money training a new inside sales rep as you do not know how long they will be around. To improve the area of training, a manager can try to automate as much as possible through e-learning. From there, there can be a division between upfront training then additional training that can be delivered later as the rep gets going.
3. Productivity
Inside sales resources are fairly expensive when you add up compensation, overhead, and the opportunity cost for their position. As a result, it is key to get as much productivity out of each resource as possible.
An inside sales manager can use quantitative metrics like dials, calls answered, talk time, number of hits, etc. to manage and increase inside sales productivity.
4. Effectiveness
It is important to make sure that inside sale reps are on the phone and making dials, but that is only half of the equation. The other half, and actually the more important half, is the level of effectiveness that they are having while talking to prospects. They can make 100 dials per day but if their messaging is off, that effort (and that expense from the company) could all be for nothing.
Using tools like role-playing, call monitoring, and sales coaching can help an inside sales manager to ensure that inside sales resources are embracing the sales training concepts and following the plan and strategy that has been developed.
5. Retention
Turnover can be high in the sales profession and it can be even higher in the area of inside sales. This is a result that selling over the phone and making cold calls can be very challenging from a mental standpoint. This can create an environment where inside sales reps find themselves frustrated and unhappy in terms of job satisfaction and motivates them to quit and try to do some other form of work.
This cost of sales staff turnover is very high so an inside sales manager can create positive results by minimizing this challenge. Managing and leading with clear goals, sufficient training, recurring coaching, and an attention on results can help in this area.
[Top]