Hamish Knox

Videoconferencing has the potential to lead us into a serious, rapport-killing selling mistake that a whole lot of us are, unfortunately, already strongly predisposed to make.

Just as it doesn’t matter what we say, it matters what our prospect hears, how we listen to our prospect while determine whether we succeed in getting paid on the information we gather instead of going into knowing mode and presuming a sale when none may exist.

George Carlin did a bit once about words that included the phrase, “it’s the context that makes them good or bad.” The bit *hasn’t* aged well, but his words are prescient when it comes to techniques learned in training.

Humans are either open or close minded to any suggestion. Once the mind is closed its nigh impossible to open it back up again until that person wants to re-open their mind.

Of the corporate blind spots shared in The Road to Excellence, “not sharing the vision with those who have to implement it” is one of the most detrimental to the sustained growth of an organization. To create buy-in with your team (aka “those who will have to implement it”) share your vision in the form of questions instead of statements.

Read Time: 6 Minutes

Trials and demos can be an important part of your sales cycle, especially in the enterprise space. Another term for a trial or demo, is the “Monkey’s Paw,” which is a small version of your larger service or a consulting project. A successful Monkey’s Paw has three components, which are similar to a successful trial.

Read Time: 7 Minutes

When our clients are elephant hunting or are selling in the enterprise space, we encourage them to engage their executives in peer-to-peer selling to their counterparts at prospect organizations.

Read Time: 4 Minutes

#1 “Most of my team’s most important prospects for new business are on vacation during the summer months.”

When the calendar turns to July and August, most people struggle to prospect because they believe that all of their prospects are on vacation.
As, David Sandler said, “you can’t manage anything you can’t control,” so worrying about the time of year isn’t going to help you hit your Q3 quota.

Instead, do something about what you can control: your behavior.

You’ve experienced a “donkey moment” during an argument. The other person metaphorically digs in their heels, they physically lean back and probably cross their arms. These moments are wimp junctions. Wimp out and your conflict likely escalates to a lose-lose ending. Take the “un-wimpy” path and your conflict deescalates with greater possibilities of a win-win resolution.