We usually learn from debates that we seldom learn from debates.
There isn’t anything I can tell you that you don’t already know,” Melly answered.“Yes, but if we already know it then you’re not telling us anything new,” Bea said, thinking her way through the carriages of fear on the witch’s train of thought, “and if we don’t tell you what we know and what we don’t know, then you won’t know if you’ve actually told us something we don’t know, and what you don’t know we don’t know won’t hurt you.”Melly stared at Bea, her cigarette hanging from her lip in defeat.“Did that make sense?” Joan asked.“Yes,” Melly said slowly, “but it probably shouldn’t have done.
When your pipeline is full – with business coming out of your ears – the notion of people asking for a discount will sound hilarious, because you’ll already be at capacity
We all need salespeople who help people with the same enthusiasm shown by a small child describing the best Christmas present EVER
Get up in the morning on a mission to save prospective clients from the shabby, ill-fitting, overpriced and worthless alternatives that those charlatans - who are your competition - are trying to get away with flogging them.
The salesperson you’d ideally like to be and the salesperson you’d like to encounter as a customer should roughly be the same, shouldn’t they?
Salespeople who think that it’s all about price aren’t required: If it can be sold on the internet at the lowest price, you can take the huge cost of a sales team out of the equation.
We all need salespeople who understand the problem and can deliver a solution that works brilliantly for both sides.
We all need salespeople who deliver value that wasn’t there before they arrived.
I can’t and won’t promise you magic sales fairy dust or the Jedi Mind Trick for salespeople – they simply don’t exist.
Remember: when you walk into a DIY store to buy a drill, you don’t want the drill. Your end goal is to make a hole and, in order to achieve this, you have to buy the drill.
Your target market are more bothered about whether what you sell will get them promoted, sacked, recognised, accepted, praised or laid.
Don’t tell me you’re passionate about your job – show me that you’re passionate about helping people like me.
If what you sell doesn’t help me then why are you knocking on my door?
We all need salespeople with humility, honesty, integrity, empathy and an old-fashioned work ethic that ensures the job gets done.
Ignore the people who say that the sales industry needs to become professionalised: it already has.
For all salespeople - Driving around and talking to people for a living, with no recognisable return for the time or money spent by your employer - is a job description that belongs in the past.
If you sound like a contestant from The Apprentice or if the customer believes that they are being sold AT, you have already failed.
Don't burn your bridges until you build better ones.
Negotiation is permissible for mediocrity not for excellence.
Think about it: if someone had found a way to manipulate human choice and free will – if someone actually had that kind of power – wouldn’t it be a tad surprising if they then decided to share their secret with the masses in a book for $20? Not to mention how it would be just very slightly unethical.
Why do customers (and that includes you and me) find it so difficult to recall more than a couple of occasions when they felt that they were treated exceptionally by the salespeople who dealt with them?
Do not compromise on the quality and your customers will not negotiate on the price.
One sticking point was that Jobs wanted his payout to be in cash. Amelio insisted that he needed to "have skin in the game" and take the payout in stock that he would agree to hold for at least a year.” Jobs resisted. Finally, they compromised: Jobs would take $120 million in cash and $37 million in stock, and he pledged to hold the stock for at least six months.
Just being nice is not a winning strategy. Nice sends a message that the woman is willing to sacrifice pay to be liked by others. This is why a woman needs to combine niceness with insistence, a style that Mary sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, calls "relentlessly pleasant." This method requires smiling frequently, expressing appreciation and concern, invoking common interests, emphasizing larger goals, and approaching the negotiation as solving a problem as opposed to taking a critical stance. Most negotiations involve drawn-out, successive moves, so women need to stay focused... and smile.No wonder women don't negotiate as much as men. It's like trying to cross a minefield backward in high heels. So what should we do? Should we play by the rules that others created? Should we figure out a way to put on a friendly expression while not being too nice, displaying the right levels of loyalty and using "we" language? I understand the paradox of advising women to change the world by adhering to biased rules and expectations. I know it is not a perfect answer but a means to a desirable end. It is also true, as any good negotiator knows, that having a better understanding of the other side leads to a superior outcome. So at the very least, women can enter these negotiations with the knowledge that showing concern for the common good, even as they negotiate for themselves, will strengthen their position.