Virden Thornton is the founder and president of The elling Edge, Inc., a sales consultingfirm specializing in sales, customer relations and sales management training and sales coaching. Clients include Sears Optical, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Bank One, Jefferson Pilot, and Wal-Mart to name a few. Virden is the author of 101 Sales Myths and the best selling Building & Closing the Sale, published by Thompson Learning.
Its difficult at best to reprimand a staff member for poor sales performance, but almost impossible to do it when the reason for a lack of sales is that the representative was servicing a large account. If wearing two hats (sales and service) is not critical to your organizations success, why set up an impossible management situation.
Opportunity is a noun, a favorable juncture of circumstances. When given an sales opportunity to meet with a prospective client, use this opportunity to build trust and rapport, and in so doing, you will find you can then make the right recommendations of your products and services.
Buzz words can sometimes aid a sales presentation, but often they tend to confuse a prospect, customer, client or co-worker. Anytime you make your listener (or reader) work hard mentally to understand your message, you run the risk that the person simply won't put forth the effort.
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