The Best Sales Books Of All Time

Everyone has a different view of sales and selling, but there is one thing we can all agree on; We want to sell more.

Just like any position or profession, we should all strive to increase our skill level on a daily basis. Sales however can be a tough profession to “study-up” on because it is such a vague profession. We may all be essentially doing the same thing, but each of us and each of our products are probably very different.

The thing that is universal about sales is that when you break it down to its fundamentals, it is the same for every person and every product. Continue reading The Best Sales Books Of All Time

Twitter Spam – I hate you “Social Media”



Lets get something straight right out of the gate.

I don’t want your direct messages about making money.

Nobody else does either.

Over the past few weeks I have started to track the amount of direct messages I get on Twitter every day. I average between 15 and Continue reading Twitter Spam – I hate you “Social Media”

Twitbird Review – Twitter IPhone App



Over the past 6 months I have had about 12 different Twitter apps for the Iphone and all of them have sucked. A great number of them were proficient at 1 thing,  sending and receiving tweets. That is perfectly fine if all you want to do is send and receive tweets like text messages, but I wanted to try and get more out of the platform. The problem I had was that I have fallen in love with the lists, direct messages, mentions, ect ect that twitter offers and none of the apps I came across could do all of them until I found Twitbird.

Twitbird is way down the list of top grossing or top downloaded apps in the utilities or social networking categories of the app store, but I have yet to understand why. This is literally the end-all twitter application. I now have full use of all of the tools that twitter has to offer: lists, direct messages, mentions, tracking, search, profile, ect ect.

Why do I care? It’s because I have crapped away about 20 hours of time looking for an app that does all of the things that Twitter offers and I am trying to save you the 20 hours of wasted time. Continue reading Twitbird Review – Twitter IPhone App

Online Sales Leads – Closing a Client You Will Never See

Selling to clients from online sales leads can be tough. First, you are never going to see them; and even though we would like to think technology has brought us to a point of no longer needing this interaction, it’s a tough hurdle to overcome. Secondly, as much as it pains me to say it and depending on the industry, internet leads are generally lower quality than walk-ins. That said, we all have to take steps to sift through these leads and make sure we are not wasting our time on the ones that won’t convert and building solid relationships with the ones that will.

There are 5 categories of focus that I know will convert online leads:

  1. Building Rapport
  2. Dynamic Language
  3. Listening
  4. Being Assertive
  5. Customer Service

All 5 categories are fundamentally similar, but their slight differences are what make them so important in their own standing.

Building Rapport

Put simply, we have to get clients to trust us through the phone in a very short window of time.

Be Honest-There is nothing that will kill a transaction faster than getting caught in a lie by a client that doesn’t have a physical connection with you.

Be Yourself-Sure you may not have that many friends, but I can guarantee your genuine personality will close more deals that the front you think you should put up.

Dynamic Language

Scripts are for people raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network. If you want to sell, know your product and go with the flow.

Creativity is Powerful. You need to be unique when you are making your connection over the interwebs or else you are going to look like every other Acai berry selling sqeezepage out there.

Listening

Most salespeople should take a step back and shut the F up every now and then. I can’t even count how many times I have gotten done with a sales call and realized that the person on the other line hadn’t said more than 3 words. We are usually so concerned about saying what we think we need to say, we miss the point of the sales call, vomit info on the client and lose the deal.

“Talk less and Say More

Being Assertive

Depending on your industry, if you are not assertive on the phone, people will walk all over you.

Call to action. Whether it’s via phone, email, website, fax……whatever, you need to have a call to action with every interaction. Even if there is nothing to do and you are simply updating everyone, give them a task. Clients that interact with you will stick with you.

Customer Service

The Golden rule of the Bible is the Golden Rule of Sales.

If you go above and beyond for each and every one of your customers, you will not have to worry about conversion. Clients work hard and are committed to people that care about them, so if you want to close on every deal, work hard and commit to every client.

Merry Christmas

50 Sales Tips and Quotes to Keep you in the Black



We have all seen quick excerpts, tips and techniques that are supposed to INCREASE YOUR SALES. That may or not be true, but what is true is that this list of sales techniques seems to be scattered across the vast plains of the interwebs and I want to consolidate them.

Keep in mind that when creating a list this long about a narrow topic, some of the items may appear to be redundant, but they are all published for a reason.

The other thing to keep in mind is the fact that most of the list below is coming straight out of my mind, so if some of it doesn’t make sense to you, I apologize. Most everyone that knows me knows that I speak in idioms. Growing up in the Ozarks is like growing up in a different world with a different language, so if something seems off-base, picture it being said in a upbeat southern accent and I promise it will someone make more sense.

Drum-roll Please………………..

50 Sales Tips and Quotes to Keep you in the Black

  1. Stay Positive
  2. Keep on the task at hand
  3. Be Dynamic in every conversation because there is no such thing as a standard sales call
  4. Be assertive: Nobody respects a pushover
  5. Talk less, Say more
  6. Return every call every time within an hour
  7. Ask for feedback
  8. Follow the 80/20 principle
  9. FOLLOW A SCHEDULE
  10. Ask for referrals
  11. Make yourself available; phone, text, twitter, email, fax, ect. ect.
  12. Reflect on every sale and improve
  13. Motivate your clients
  14. Be an information leader IE Know what your talking about
  15. Stay assertive, but have an accessible personality
  16. Have a personalized voice-mail
  17. Picture yourself in your clients shoes
  18. Practice your sales calls
  19. Confidence is worth it’s weight in gold
  20. Customer service is next to Godliness
  21. Follow-through with every transaction
  22. Nothing counts unless it closes
  23. Follow-up; At least weekly
  24. Sell what you love, the money will follow
  25. Time-Value-Of-Money is the most important calculation a salesman should worry about
  26. You never learn a lesson from a Yes
  27. Salesman or saleswomen should never come in front of sales-team
  28. Fear controls the lowest earning 90% of salespeople
  29. Remember that diamonds are found in the mud and mire
  30. Less talk more walk
  31. Creativity is one of the strongest sales tools available
  32. Walk behind the champions only until you build the strength to jump over them.
  33. Always Be Closing
  34. Walk your own path to success; old minds think alike
  35. Never cross the fine line between persuasion and pressure
  36. An upright person will always win; not because they have largest sale today, but because the sales they have today will generate 3 sales tomorrow.
  37. It’s better to know the author than to read his text.
  38. The sale is only as big as you are.
  39. Common sense is worth 10 times more than memorized technique
  40. The best sales pitch is worthless without a call-to-action
  41. Determination cannot be outsources or delegated
  42. Under Promise and Over Deliver
  43. Solve Problems don’t Sell Solutions
  44. Take care of your customers or your competitors will
  45. Opening a relationship is more important than closing a sale
  46. Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust
  47. Samson killed a thousand men with the jaw bone of an ass. That many sales are killed every day with the same weapon
  48. Your greatest sales tools are your ears. Shut up and listen to your clients
  49. The Golden Rule of Sales is the Golden Rule
  50. A salesman, like the storage battery in your car, is constantly discharging energy. Unless he is recharged at frequent intervals he soon runs dry. This is one of the greatest responsibilities of sales leadership

There probably thousands more and if you have any to share, feel free to shoot them to me and I will add them.

Also, feel free to quote me in any of your acceptance speeches, inaugurations, board of directors meetings, ect.  🙂

Good luck out there. Keep fighting the good fight.

A Legend in My Own Mind