Abandon Bad Strategies

Many bad strategic decisions are made in the business world. Successful businesses know when to "cut their losses" and abandon those strategies. We find that some owners and managers stay with a bad strategic decision too long because they are, 1) stubborn, 2) arrogant or 3) don't know better. Being stubborn or letting an ego drive decisions are not acceptable reasons for staying too long with a strategic direction. Not knowing better speaks to the ability of the owner or manager to run a business or operating unit. When a strategic direction is obviously a bad choice, it is wise to move in a different direction and reallocate the resources previously applied to that strategy. Staying too long with a strategic direction will ultimately impact the bottom line and could make it difficult, if not impossible, to recover in some cases.

Happy Thanksgiving

To all my readers of Sales Guru Online, I want to wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving. With all the challenges we are facing in these times; hurricanes, terrorists, what have you; this is a good time to reflect on our own good fortune and be thankful for what we have.

For those of us in the sales profession, we are equally blessed to have customers who want our products and services. As such, we need to make sure we continue to give them the support and attention they need and deserve after the sale. In return, we will have earned their continued loyalty and future business.

As we enter into this holiday season, may you have healthy, happy and profitable times.

Much Success!

Russ Lombardo
russ@peaksalesconsulting.com

Listen To Your Customers

We have found that too many businesses don't listen carefully enough to their customers. It is critical in the highly competitive environment in which most businesses operate to actively solicit input from customers. Most customers won't come forward when they have complaints or suggestions. Businesses must find effective ways to seek out that feedback. Formal surveys conducted on a regular and consistent basis is one good way to gather such feedback. While there is some expense associated with surveying, the information obtained is almost always worth far more than what is spent on the survey. Good feedback from customers allows a business to make the necessary adjustments to become more effective in serving customer needs. Also, take unsolicited customer feedback seriously. So often businesses dismiss this information as unimportant when, in fact, it should be documented and followed up on. Very often there is an underlying problem within the company that should be dealt with and to ignore the customer feedback is akin to saying that "we will continue to be ineffective in dealing with our customers."

Good Luck and Good Selling!
Russ Lombardo
919-559-2395

10 Ways to Be a Better Negotiator

In my last issue of "got sales?" eNewsletter, I wrote an article about Negotiating (www.peaksalesconsulting.com/Newsletters/Newsletter-Vol3-Issue7.htm). The link below points to an excellent compliment to that article from the folks at StartUp Nation.

www.startupnation.com/pages/articles/AT_Become-A-Better-Negotiator.asp

Enjoy!

Russ

How to Write An Effective Cold Calling Script

Many people think they can just "wing it" or they "know what they want to say." On the telephone, however, you have 10 seconds to grab and hold your prospect's attention and frequently you don't get a second chance. Ten seconds goes by very quickly. Your first impression has to be strong enough to carry you through the rest of your pitch. "Winging it" is risky and just generally doesn't work, and "knowing what you want to say" without having actually crafted your message and practiced it can easily turn into "gee, I didn't say that very well..." Read Full Article

Tap Into the Fortune Teller…In You

Here's another pearl of wisdom from my friend, Bob Ritter, on improving your sales success. Enjoy!

Russ Lombardo
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What if you could predict the future? If you could anticipate what people will do, would you leverage that knowledge for success? You can and here’s how!

As sales and marketing professionals we don’t need a fortune teller to tell us the future. With a little experience and common sense, we can anticipate it. How so … well think about it… READ MORE