News and Articles

Even talented, well-motivated professionals should be incentivised to get the best out of them.  Raegan Matthews makes the case for structured incentive schemes that offer rewards other than cash

Grant Leboff reveals why, if you fail to understand your buyer’s fears, sales opportunities can easily be missed

People don’t like being sold to, but they like to buy – so goes one of the oldest myths in sales.  The solution, we are told, is not to ‘sell’ to people, but to help them buy.  While there is no doubt that a salesperson should facilitate a purchase, so making it easier for a buyer to buy, the myth that people enjoy buying can hinder sales taking place.

Effective online networking requires you to do more than simply collect contacts.  Chris Butler describes its true potential

Graham French explains why you should take time to review your sales process

When the going gets tough, it has been said more than once, the tough get going.  Doing more of the same, however, isn’t necessarily going to enable you to blast those revenue targets away.

Work harder … sure, but working smarter will provide a greater payoff.  There’s still too much sloppy selling going on: salespeople not preparing properly for meetings, poor qualification of opportunities, and lack of understanding of the decision process.  ‘Winging it’ may have been sufficient in good times, but slopping selling is a killer now.

Sales chiefs should look for ways to cut out non-productive selling effort and sloppiness in the way their people sell.  Allowing salespeople to do it their way, simply because they are comfortable doing it, isn’t sensible in a deep downturn – especially if you can prove to them there’s a better way to sell.

While few salespeople actually use traditional closing techniques in modern selling, especially when dealing with more sophisticated customers, it is amazing how some of the new end-game strategies bear an uncanny resemblance to yesterday’s more blunt techniques.

Selling doesn’t work, according to Philip Gwynne.  Here, he explains why a more subtle approach may be more effective

Peter Humphreys explains how to engage your salesforce in a sales environment that is undergoing radical change

Mango are pleased to advise that one of our directors, Ian Jackson will be completing a charity cycle Cambodia later this year. According to Ian he felt it was time to get fit and lose some weight, but at the same time he wanted to make a difference ( Hence the charity cycle). Some people may have tried something easier to begin with, Ian is now under pressure to get fit and ready for about 80Km per day. Luckily ,there is only one hard day uphill – which apparently is the last day!

Times are tough and your salespeople are flagging.  Ian Clarke suggests how to strengthen and motivate your sales team in the teeth of the recession

Life’s not easy.  Your targets are X% above last year’s and your salespeople are reporting that their good prospects are moving back up the sales funnel as their purchasing budgets have been reduced or cut ‘until things get better’

Andy Preston explains why most people struggle with using email in the sales process

I’ve noticed recently that salespeople are starting to rely on email more and more.  However, if they aren’t careful it can often be at the expense of their own sales figures.  Have a look at the examples of common email sales mistakes below, and see if any ring true for you.