Picture in your mind for a moment a typical Accountant.  What is s/he doing? If you pictured an Accountant from Enron, he is probably making number plates.  But if you pictured a normal accountant, she would probably have a calculator, or a spreadsheet, or a graph out in front of them.  For they are the [...]

How fast do you talk? Popular opinion says that most of us talk at 125 words a minute…

There’s something wonderful about simplicity, because buying stuff has become a bit complicated. When a company does present you with a simple way to get something done, it bowls you off your feet.

Sales people really have to flex their personalities – to be all things to all people. You have to have an analytical bent, researching a client for hours on end. And, you have to of course be creative to think of innovative solutions.

The corporate version of a market stall is of course the trade show. And right now, we are in the thick of trade show season. Yet despite desperately wanting a big return for their considerable spend, we have found upwards of 80% of exhibitors really don’t seem to spend the time or effort on developing and maintaining a strategic sales approach.

This week’s OMP is all about helping your clients and audiences to utilise their imagination, which will help you sell. And there’s no better place to start than with Lego.

I lunched with a good friend of mine late last week who works with a large multinational insurance brokerage. Like many of us, he is in the strategic planning part of the year, with a big presentation to his Board this week. The focus of his presentation is how to grow client revenues in 2011.

Lost opportunity exists not because of a lack of innovation, but a lack of communication. The founder of Natural Training, Matt Drought, explains why.

When persuading others to buy, feelings most definitely count. Happy, confident, secure customers reach longer, and deeper, into their pockets.

There is a strong psychological link between emotion and making bigger sales as these two studies show…

Customers love choice. That’s why we may be presented with hundreds of choices if we want to buy a VW Beetle, or a Dell Laptop, or configure our phone with just the right ringtone.
There is some interesting research about offering lots of choice that proves it can be counter-productive to a sale…

There is a book that has been passed around the corridors of many of the UK and Europe’s biggest consulting businesses such as PWC and Deloittes.

This book is The Trusted Advisor by David Maister.

Chinese drivers aren’t the only ones playing the waiting game right now. If you are in sales, you know all about waiting. You seem to spend half your life doing it. Selling big deals is as much about patience and understanding as it is about action.

Sales people can find themselves surrounded by non-sales related activities that are either put on them by others or that they seek out because sales aren’t going so well.

Yesterday we learn that along with the oil rolling in from the Gulf of Mexico, so the head of BP rolls. Tony Hayward, the Chief Executive of BP, is to make way for a bloke by the name of Bob Dudley from October. Dudley summed up the recent experience of the world’s largest ever oil [...]

This article from Natural Training founder Matt Drought examines the streetfighting attitude you need to bring to your sales efforts in today’s market.

As you know at Natural Training we are pretty big on clear messaging and clarity when speaking and presenting.
To highlight what great clarity means in business I couldn’t wait to share this little story about Mart Laar which I hope you enjoy…