Sales Intelligence: A Smarter Way to Sell
INTRODUCTION
Twenty years ago, I landed my first position in sales. Since then, I’ve sold multi-million dollar projects in over 20 countries, traveled with government delegations, and made plenty of mistakes. Even if at the time I thought I was doing everything right. It’s easy to pick these out years after the fact, maybe partially because it’s easier to admit them now, but mainly because these days I have the knowledge and the tools to analyze the situations in detail.
Over the years as I gained more sales intelligence – both in information and smarts – I realized that I was able to predict whether I would get a particular sale or not. When the light went on it was so easy, but no one else seemed to be using the same methods. It’s taken hundreds of actual sales cases to accumulate the data to develop my methodology. The fact is sales is a constant state of information gathering and analysis. There are numerous pieces of data that will affect your sale – from where your company is positioned in the market, to manufacturing capacity, to a harmless tidbit of organizational information received over lunch. The more quality information you have, the better your sales results will be.
Most of this information can’t be purchased from commercially available reports or found in statistical research, and a motivational kick in the bottom isn’t going to help. Many authors tell you what your goal should be, but they don’t tell you how to get there. Knowing that, statistically, you will win every fifth quote is great, but how does that information help you with the one you are working on now? And, every quote is decided by somebody. Who are they?
Everyone in sales is looking for that purple pill: the one that helps you sell anything to anyone. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist. Hard work, avoiding mistakes, and a strong analytical approach will win you sales.
Skill-Based Learning for Sales Professionals 