What is your ideal selling style?

Are you having trouble figuring out your ideal selling style? You won’t be on your own if you’re a bit uncomfortable about selling. Let’s be honest, sales has lots of negative connotations. The Hollywood portrayal of sales is always the brash, win-at-all-costs mentality. Think of the Wolf of Wall Street or Richard Gere in Pretty…

Is B Corp certification greenwashing?

We’ve now been a B Corp for four years so this is a subject close to our hearts and one we’re open to debating. What is greenwashing? According to Wikipedia: Greenwashing is a form of advertising or marketing spin in which green PR and green marketing are deceptively used to persuade the public that an…

How to get the best out of a mentoring Discovery call

Discovery calls are often used by mentors or consultants to better understand your current situation. They also act as a “getting to know you” experience in which you can both work out whether you get on together or not. The mentor will want to understand whether they can really help you or not. Though some…

Five ways to motivate a sales team in 2024

Every business wants a motivated sales team but what makes this even more important in 2024? Three things stand out as being unusual in the coming year: You might argue good sales people shouldn’t need motivating, so let’s start there. Remove the piss-off factors Really this shouldn’t need writing, but the reality in many sales…

Is a Sales Mentor strategic or tactical?

How do people react when you explain what you do? It’s always interesting to see whether the response is enthusiastic or politely passive. But more than this, do people actually get it? You know in detail what you do – and in the context of your industry it makes complete sense. But most conversations are…

7 tips for successful sales pitches

When it comes to successful sales pitches, there are some components that should show up every time. You need confidence and enthusiasm. You need to know what your message is and who your audience is. And you need to look the part and have the right tools or materials to convince the listener. For this…

The importance of customer loyalty and how to measure it

If sales measures had a Greatest Hits catalogue then customer loyalty would be the one everyone is singing along to. Customer loyalty is the banger that keeps everyone singing long after the band have left the stage. Customer loyalty is what gets you more deals, at higher prices, at a lower cost of acquisition. It’s…

What sort of sales training does my business need?

It’s surprising how often companies decide they need sales training before answering this key question. In many ways the decision is a no-brainer: Good sales training helps you engage better with customers and it helps motivate and keep great sales people. So budget time comes around again and everyone agrees “sales training” is something that…

5 mistakes that lead to unsustainable sales deals

Sustainable selling is something we frequently speak about. Why is that? It’s because sales is a specialism that’s full of people offering quick fixes, which can result in unsustainable sales. Search Google for sales questions and you’ll find plenty of “clever” questions designed to manipulate customers. Not to mention the countless lead gen businesses promising…

Moving sales from an artform to a science

Successful selling. Is it about working alongside someone and collaborating on solutions, or is it about getting them to do what you want? Is it about helping them or manipulating them? We hear both of these views and there are believers in both approaches. Nor is it easy to draw the line between these styles.…

Influencing customers without pitching

Why? You might ask ? When it comes to influencing customers without pitching, just think – how many times have you met someone at a networking or business event and been forced to listen to them drone on about how important they are? At what point did you mentally switch off and start looking for…

How do you increase value for customers in 2023?

Times are challenging – there’s no surprise in that news. And the messaging everywhere is about ‘value’. Adverts for products and services claiming to be ‘better value’ compared either to a former version of themselves, or their competition. When trying to increase value for customers, what exactly constitutes value in the first place…is it the…