Here’s a sales process adopted from W. Edwards Demming’s principle of optimization. Break your sales process into as many discrete – but meaningful – steps as you can. Cold calling. Letter writing. Setting appointments. Identifying pain. Writing proposals. Presenting. And so on. Now, find out who in your organization excels at each step, and have [...]
Read MoreAvoid these four mistakes

In these ‘slower’ times, do you or your sales team take to the phone to drum up new business? If so, you may have noticed that many old “tried and true” cold calling techniques, which once were successful, just don’t work anymore. Yet salespeople still use them, because that’s all they know. They’re using an [...]
Read MoreDon’t ‘waste’ advertising dollars

Nothing is more pointless than spending money on an advertising campaign when no effort is made in-house to deliver on the promise to customers. I’ve had many years experience in the advertising industry. I’ve sold advertising space at radio stations and I’ve been a senior account director for a multinational advertising agency. When a campaign [...]
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Moments of Truth
The success of any business will depend on how well the customer is treated. A useful way to develop your customer focus is to consider what happens in “Moments of Truth” – a term credited to
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Price Signals
Discounting to obtain market share or sales volume is a misguided strategy. For one thing, price sends a message about quality. Do cheap restaurants sell the finest meals? Does Walmart sell
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Your competitive advantage
There is a danger for many small businesses that they will be seen by potential customers as a commodity. After all, there are several suppliers of the same or similar products
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