Stop Wasting Time on Proposals Nobody Reads! Sign up here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2571952780 (December 21st at 1:00 PM) Nothing wastes more time than writing proposals that don’t sell. The more you write, the more time you waste…I remember some of my early proposals, crafted after lengthy documents I had seen as an IT manager. Then one day […]
Today we finished Day 3 of the online Making Money with Security workshop – using an actual assessment sent to me by one of the attendees, we were able to walk through the process companies should go through to create the perfect assessment document and deliverable/presentation-one that will lead to more business. By observing the […]
How did one of my clients close a million dollar deal? 1. It started with an event – a prospect, someone she had not done business with in the past, came to an event geared toward educating our audience on the trends and risks associated with today’s cyber criminals. 2. An assessment was done – […]
I like to think of my proposal as a letter addressed to someone rather than a sterile document opening with a third-person narrative of the company I am selling to. I address them personally… Example: John Smith, RE: Fall Seminar Series I understand you are working to build your sales over the next twelve months […]
For some reason, discussing money is the major hurdle. Yesterday I had several sales calls with potential buyers. One example stands out… We had discussed the need, talked about options, come to a conclusion on next steps, and even picked dates to begin. My prospect then said, “Send me a proposal with some options and […]
Several companies I am working with right now are going through various assessment and discovery programs to create justification for larger projects. This builds on the material presented online last week. The problem is, most assessments are too technical. A change is needed if justification is going to be found in your discovery/assessment process. Here […]
In a recent sales opportunity we (the seller and myself acting as a sales coach) were charged with providing a competitive quote on unified communications (UC) products. The company already uses UC, so the quote is simply an upgrade. The seller assembled the quote, listing all of the necessary hardware, software, and services to move […]
A question came in today asking, “What is the difference between ROI and TCO? Our company uses the terms interchangeably.” This is common…but they really are different. Here is some explanation: I use the term TCO specifically to mean that it will cost you less to produce the same or better results. By focusing more […]
Continuing on with operational efficiency sales tactics from yesterday’s post, the problem comes in when the product or service does not directly relate to a business issue. This is common with efficiency gains when considering products that relate more to infrastructure. However TCO numbers can play a strong supporting role here; where product doesn’t necessarily […]
Yesterday I mentioned Covey’s second habit – Beginning with the end in mind…how does this work in practice? When planning a sales call, “the end”, or meeting outcome must be the first consideration! Doing otherwise wastes both yours and the prospects time. What should the call outcome be? Almost every company I work with can […]
High Tech Business Growth 