An in-house engineer is paid around $100,000 a year – give or take. That’s about $50 per hour.

Their employer charges them out at $150 per hour. That’s how they make their money.

If a sales person visits and offers them less than $150 potential value during the call they will not be invited back.

If they offer $150 in potential value the sales person will be seen as doing the bare minimum amount of work to get by. They generally aren’t invited back.

To be taken seriously, the sales person has to offer potential value greater than $150.

How much should be offered? Two times, five times, or ten times?

The answer to that is not as important as the value your sales team heads out with. A new brochure is about $1 in value – even full colour ones.

This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”. To find out more or to purchase copies of this book click here

There is an old sales maxim that we do business with people we like. It makes sense and is at the heart of the relationship sales movement.

With so much competition in the market, this idea has evolved into doing business with people we deem as worthy of our trade.

If you want a buyer to give you an order number, they have to see that you are worthy of receiving it. They want to know if you’re their equal in the relationship or if they can walk all over you.

To see if you are worthy of the business, buyers will test you. It may be subtle (not returning a call when they said they would) or overt (talking over you or ignoring your comments in a meeting).

Sometimes they do this for fun (not sending that big order through until 6pm on a Friday afternoon) or because they want to see how you react (giving 24 hours to re-work a full tender).

These are hoops they put up for you to jump through. How you jump through them (or don’t) tells them how worthy of their business you are.

If they can walk all over you from day 1, how much power will you have when you need to negotiate further business?

Jumping through hoops shows where you sit in the relationship. Jump with care.

This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”, ​Due out May 2016. To find out more and register for pre-release information click here

Businesses exist to solve problems – no other reason.

If you sell legal services the problem you fix is ignorance of the law. If you sell lifting equipment the problem you solve is how to move heavy objects.

If you want to sell something to a business you need to help them solve problems. It could be the problems they solve (moving heavy objects) or problems they have in solving problems (they aren’t making their equipment fast enough to keep up with orders).

Whatever the business does, their problem is not that they don’t have your products. That’s your problem – not theirs.

This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”, ​Due out May 2016. To find out more and register for pre-release information click here.

There are three reasons why a sales person makes a sales call.

1. Intro – ‘Hi I’m the new guy looking after you.’
2. Info – ‘Hi, this is the information you asked for.’
3. Sell – ‘Hi, this is the widget you need. It costs $10.’

In reality most calls are a mixture of all three. After all, you’re not going to knock back a sale when just scouting for information.

So why do you need to know this?

So you know when the sales call is over.

People who outstay their welcome are rarely appreciated. If you’re leaving simply because the allotted 30 minutes is up, you wont be welcomed back.

This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”, ​Due out May 2016. To find out more and register for pre-release information click here