These are the notes from Gitomer’s 5.5 Things Sales Professionals Whine About.

If you say you Lost the sale on Price, what you are really saying is that you did not establish your Value. Without Value, it comes down to Price only. Remind yourself What is your USP?

If you can’t get an appointment, it’s because you are boring and sound like everyone else. Have fun. Be more interesting. Be Creative.

Are you Engaging the Prospects? What kinds of Questions do you ask? Do any of your questions make the prospect thing differently?

Voicemail sucks doesn’t it? And you can’t get calls returned, huh? Why? You don’t give them any reason to call you back. Be Creative. Be Different. Intrigue them. Be funny.

What makes me laugh is the “I don’t have enough time to ….” Time Management is everyone’s Achilles Heel, but you have to do what is important, not urgent. Pre-call preparation is important. Dialing and Smiling works better with a little research. We have this thing called Google that holds a boatload of info about your prospective company.

At the end of the day, Action, Hard work, Creativity, and Preparation will help you succeed. Remember to Work the Process.

Listening is a skill. Not just for salespeople. As a culture, we are losing the Art of Conversation.

Listen as if you care what the other person is saying. Don’t just wait for your turn to say something or blather.

Active Listening Is an Essential Sales Tool by Keith Rosen contains Eight Ways to Become the Most Effective Listener, including Listening for what is not said.

David Kahle has the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Technique for Improved Listening here.

I hope you were listening.

I attended Jeffrey Gitomer’s Sales Training today sponsored by ActionCoach. ActionCoach was offering a lunch and further training right after the Gitomer 4-hour session. However, it wasn’t a check box on the order page for Gitomer. It wasn’t an add-on sale during that ticketing process. There wasn’t a follow email that said, “Hey, want to add some more training and lunch?”

When we checked in at Gitomer’s training, no one asked if we wanted to go to the Action section. Gitomer made a statement about how he likes ActionCoach CEO Brad Sugar, but no upsell there either.

When you have that many touch points in a sales process, you need to take advantage. Want to see a company that does it well? Go buy a domain name.