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If you’re like me, working daily, as hard as you can to build something for yourself, you may find it a challenge to take time to exercise. In this episode I’m here to tell you that the benefits of exercising extend far beyond physical health to include mental health benefits also.  Benefits that can help you achieve more and be more productive, despite taking 60 Minutes out of your day for some exercise.

Every industry has an off-season.  A time when vacation or seasonal holidays mean that its harder to get hold of the people you need to, or response times are delayed because of seasonal or religious holidays.  This is the equivalent of the off-season for athletes and while it’s fine to take some down-time and let your hair down, the very best salespeople seize these occasions to hone their craft and ensure that, like the athletic superstars they look up to, they come back fitter, stronger and hungrier after the off-season, ready to knock it out of the park.

When the average person thinks about negotiation, its typically informed by what they’ve seen on TV, or witnessed in market-stall type negotiations. It involves a back and forth on price with the two parties typically agreeing on a compromise number with the stereo-typical ‘lets meet in the middle’ agreement being the final words spoken before a handshake to conclude the deal.It’s true that commoditized lower value negotiations can result in this type of ‘negotiation’ however if you are interested in negotiating larger deals and improving your closure rate then you should make one very important shift in your thinking and it’s this. Negotiation starts on the first engagement you have with your prospective customer and ends (for that deal at least) on the day you have a signed contract. Every step in between involves negotiation of some kind, and for the skilled negotiator results in the final deal closure being a matter of relative ease. 

One of the most challenging issues in sales is the procrastination or inaction of others, and no-where is this potentially more challenging than when you are engaged in an important deal.In 20+ years of selling I’ve rarely seen a deal get better the longer it gets delayed, but I’ve seen a great number of deals get killed or reduced in scope as a result of delays, as people’s roles change, competing projects take priority, or any number of alternate changes take place in the prospects organisation. Time – truly is the enemy of sales.

I’ve been in sales in various capacities, both as a bag carrying sales rep and as CEO of my own software company.   In every role I’ve either submitted a forecast, or reviewed forecasts submitted to me and many of them share one thing in common.  Many were, to a greater or lesser extent, works of fiction.   Rivalled only by authors like JK Rowling for their imagination you could title some of the forecasts ‘Fantastic Deals, and where to find them’. 

If you don’t fully believe in, and love your product or service – how can you hope to convince others to do so.  This episode focuses on the principle that to help you be even more successful in sales you need to align with, or create a product or service that you love and have personal commitment to helping succeed.  When a product you love is presented by you, a dedicated committed sales professional, you have potent, if embryonic ingredients for success.

The scene starts with 2 detective’s and an alleged car thief sitting opposite each other in an interrogation room.  One of the detectives ask’s ‘Did you steal the car?’.  The alleged thief answers ‘No’.  The second detective ask’s ‘Tell me about your movements in the past 24 hours’.  Which method of questioning do you think will produce the most insight?.  That is part of the art of Questioning and its role in sales is not to be underestimated.

From the time that Neanderthal man etched crude markings on the walls of his cave, through to the interactive ipad-based stories that our kids enjoy today, man has enjoyed telling and listening to stories.  Award winning journalists have always used powerful story-telling techniques to help illustrate their points in a manner that everyone can relate to.  There is a reason that the US alone spends northwards of $14Bn a year on books.  We love stories.

The great 6th Century Chinese military leader Sun Tsu once said in his book The Art of War,  ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles’.  What he meant by this is that by having an understanding of your enemy you can create a set of circumstances that means they cannot be successful.  The same is true in sales, to an extent.  In other words, the better you understand your competition, the better prepared you can be for the daily fight that involves you competing with them.

If you sell a product or service that can be demonstrated you no doubt receive requests from prospective customers to see your product or service in action.  You might feel this is a standard enough request and one that you should respond to with a simple ‘yes’.  If you do, you are missing a couple of tricks that will help you engage your client more successfully and increase your sales conversion rate substantially. 

If you work in Sales or perhaps you run your own business you know how painful it can be to lose a sale.  If you care, you beat yourself up over it for weeks, and the impact of losing that sale never really leaves you – it leaves a mark, maybe even a scar.  In my experience the people who feel this most often are the ‘Lone wolves’ of selling – they are the inexperienced salespeople who don’t understand one of the golden rules of selling – NEVER Lose alone.

Theres a saying ‘You can always make more money, but you can never make more time’. This is true in all businesses but is particularly pertinent in Sales because how you spend your time is so important.   Central to making your time as productive as possible is the concept of ‘Qualification’.  What we mean by qualification is the act of determining if a lead or prospect is really serious about buying.  This is pretty important to understand, before you start selling.In this episode we look at the need for deal or lead qualification and the ways in which this can be achieved.

In this episode we explain what a sales process is and why its so important to have one. We discuss the key elements of a sales process and provide some examples of a sales process that delivered $20m in sales in just 18 months.  

What does 'Selling' mean to you? In this podcast we explore some of the fundamental pillars of sales and explore the importance of sales skills developments so that selling becomes a core subconscious skillset that we can harness naturally and easily.  By way of simple anecdotes we explore what it means to 'sell' and how process, combined with sales strategy can be extremely powerful.

An introduction from author Ferdinand Roberts. In this episode we talk about what we are seeking to achieve with 100 Million Dollar Selling, setting the scene for upcoming podcasts and giving you a sense of what you can expect from upcoming shows. If you want to join the elite of the 100 Million Dollar sales club, have a listen - what you hear will change your life.