Sun Tzu said in The Art of War…

Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles.

Knowing yourself, knowing your company, knowing your products is not enough.

You must know when your competitors will fight you and how they will fight you.

Knowing your enemy is as important as knowing yourself. If you don't know your competition, their strategies and their sales tactics, then put an action plan in place today to get to know them.

Fail to do this, and you will lose many more deals than you will ever win.

Sell with Pride,

Shameless Shamus Brown

P.S. Most sales people have a miserable closing rate. You can close 70-90% of your deals and make a LOT more bux when you use the strategies and tactics I show you in my Persuasive Selling Skills Audio Program - get your copy here now.

Whether you realize this or not you are responsible for this.

Every salesman is.

It's crucial to your success.

And if you don't proactively manage this, it will derail you, and destroy you.

What is it?

Your attitude. Read the rest of this entry »

How much do you trust yourself?

Do you trust your own judgment?

Do you trust in, believe in, and act on your intuition?

I can remember the moment when I started trusting myself.

One day it suddenly occurred to me that every deal I had ever won, and every deal I had ever lost I knew within the first one or two sales calls what the outcome would be.

I call this intuition.

You can call it gut feel if you want. I sometimes call it that too.

This was an important moment for me.

Important because I realized that I could, and should trust my own judgment about my deals more than anyone else.

I reached this point around 5 years into my selling career (which was back in the early 90s if you are just getting to know me).

It was a freeing revelation, because I now knew that I could put more faith in my gut intuition than in what my sales management might want me to do.

I stopped trying to convince myself that I could close every deal.

I stopped trying to use "will power" and "positive thinking" and "hope" to close sales. Read the rest of this entry »

Sales Prospects know when sales people lying.

Now I know that you probably aren't dishonest.

You probably don't lie when selling.

But people look for little inconsistencies in every stranger they meet.

And people are being sold to, they scrutinize every little thing.

Most of your prospects are actually not formally trained in how to tell if a sales person is lying.

But knowing whether or not someone is being honest, direct, and well intentioned with us is a human survival instinct in my opinion.

You know, cavemen needed to know whether that stranger from another tribe really wanted to be an honest ally in the woolly mammoth hunt, or if he was gonna get conked in the head when it was all over.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here's my Sales Thought for the Week…

Either the economy is getting better, or we just think it is.

No matter, what'll really help your sales is if you believe your sales WILL get better. Optimism about your own future, regardless of what’s happening in the world around you, will greatly assist you in making it happen.

Decide you will have a great year and chances are you will.

Sell with Pride,

Shameless Shamus Brown

P.S. Once you decide to have a better year, follow through and give yourself the skills to make it happen now with my Persuasive Selling Skills Audio Program.

Ever find yourself talking real fast on sales call or a phone call?

If you do, then slow down.

Slow way down.

And shut up once in awhile.

A salesman who is talking is NOT a salesman who is listening.

Silence is something you need to be very comfortable with to be a good seller.

Telling is not selling.

The one who is doing the "talking" is not in control.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, you read that right.

There's sooooo much sales opportunity right now.

These past few months have been some of the best since I have been in business.

But it's not just me.

There's sales opportunity all around.

The key is that sometimes you gotta be willing to go find it.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most frustrating and difficult tasks for sales reps is finding fresh prospects.

I've talked before about qualifying and sorting.

Effective qualifying and sorting is one of the most important tasks that a sales professional must do.

He must do this because so much of marketing doesn't bring in well qualified leads.

So the salesman has to do his own marketing himself much of the time. He must do his own work to find and attract the prospects that are a good fit for his company's business.

Marketing is about attracting the prospects who are able and interested in buying.

Selling is about qualifying and closing those prospects.

Read the rest of this entry »

Most people like to think of themselves as positive people.

Positive, optimistic, hopeful people.

Hope reigns supreme, or so the saying goes.

Hope even elected the President of the United States this last year.

But as hopeful as people are…

As positive, and as optimistic as people are…

Most people in the world harbor one big contradiction.

Read the rest of this entry »

I know that sales are off everywhere. Lots of businesses and lots of sales people are suffering right now.

Suffering is a choice though. You may not think so, which is part of the reason why people suffer.

But it is a choice.

A choice people make when then think that they have no other options and that they are the whim of life's circumstances.

One of my customers, Phil Masters from England, rejected the notion of being helpless as his lead flow hit an all-time low. Here's his story and what he did about it…

Read the rest of this entry »