Blog

LinkedIn as a Lead Generation Tool

Simply having a LinkedIn account is not enough - you must have a strategy and a plan!

Make More Impact With Your Presentations

Speak to move people towards action - not to inform them! Making business presentations is a regular part and parcel of being a modern business manager or executive. The impact your presentation makes can impact your sales figures, your business results and even your personal reputation.

How to Get More Appointments by Phone

No matter how you initially find a lead, whether from a referral, a networking event or simply a cold list, at some point you must pick up the telephone and speak with that prospect. If that initial telephone conversation does not go well, you will not move to the next step in your sales cycle.

You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate

In today’s highly-competitive markets, prospects are more risk-averse than ever. While your prospects must focus on every aspect of every purchase to prove that they are getting the best possible deal. Many of your prospects have become “professional purchasers” who know how to play hardball with suppliers and they are fully responsible to get the best deal possible.

Selling In Tough Times

How well networked are you? In 2010 business development is tougher that ever before. Buyers are more cautious, preferring to spend their budgets with trusted suppliers. For this reason cold callers are finding phones slamming down faster than ever before. On top of this, the decision making process in many organisations’ has moved up a level to more senior management, and this may mean your old contacts no longer have the power or autonomy to make purchasing decisions on their own any more. Clearly, to be successful in sales in 2010 it’s not who you know that counts, it’s who knows and trusts you that does.

Financial Services Special Report: Is your brokerage built for success or failure?

“Good times shield us from the truth about the limitations of our sales organisation. However when the financial services marketplace gets tougher those limitations can threaten your brokerages very survival” so says David Malone, Executive Director of Evolve Consultants.

I know what you did last summer!

I know what you did last summer. In fact, I know what the majority of sales professionals have been doing every summer for the last five or six years. What am I talking about? The great corporate Ireland summer wind down. Quarter three is an odd time for doing business in Ireland. 

Time to act in a counter intuitive manner

Going against your gut, and acting in a counter intuitive manner will see you through the recession argues John Ryan who believes that many companies are making disastrous short term decisions today that will undermine their future success and may in fact prove fatal.

Top negotiators retain margin in tougher times

Whether you are buying or selling in today’s economic environment your clients will in all probability be asking you to negotiate a better deal. Even the clients who never mentioned price before are coming under pressure to get more value for money, so how will you hold onto your margin and protect your bottom line while keeping your clients happy. The people who succeed in this tough task are those who understand the rules and principles of negotiation and are skilled at implementing them.