Keith Rosen is an executive sales coach and author of a bunch of books including the Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions, which was named Sales Leadership Book of the Year!
Keith also received a Stevie Award for The Sales Education Leader of the Year.

Keith has released a prospecting checklist for you to use to schedule more appointments with key decision makers. (Notice the term “key decision makers” – that’s called a qualifier).

Another gift from Keith is his new 100-page e-book, Leadership Mojo. To receive your free copy, simply send an email to mojo at profitbuilders.com with the words “Leadership Mojo” in the subject line and within minutes, you’ll receive your special download! Now go sell seomething!

From the blog bearonbusiness, guest blogger Teresa tells the tale of a pretty bad sales person. The lesson as she sums it up:

“Most sales people walk into a customer meeting with a “me me me us us us”
pitch. Little time is spent with probing questions like “What are your team goals for the year? How can we help you accomplish those goals? What are your biggest concerns/issues you are facing with vendors today?” It’s not a novel idea-but it’s one easily forgotten.”

There is a sales process that the top salespeople execute all the time. It consists of 5 steps (inspired by this article on StartUp Nation).

Prospecting or as I call it Disqualifying. Identify who needs your product; wants your product; and can afford to pay for your product. Must have all 3.

Needs Analysis. After you find the prospect, you engage in a conversation to understand if there is a need. Where’s the pain? No pain. No way to make the prospect a buyer.

Presenting and proposing. This is where you lay out how your product can solve the pain usually in budget.

Closing. Look for buying signs. Ask for the sale. Re-phrase and ask again.

Follow Up. the key to sales is the number of touches. It can take seven touches to persuade the prospect to buy. It could take more or less depending. But you need excellent follow up as a sign of commitment, responsibility, and expectations.

Improve upon each step of the sales process and you improve your sales.