100 Great Sales Ideas
Patrick Forsyth
ISBN: 978-0-462-09961-3

IDEA 1: Getting people to give you time
Many sales people need to take steps to get people to give them their undivided attention, to spend sufficient time with them and to do so willingly because they believe it is useful. But… People are busy, these days pressure on time seems to be greater than ever before, and anything other than a realistic attitude to this is unlikely to help you sell successfully.

Clearly a more professional approach is more likely to be seen as relevant, but the more imaginative sales people can take specific action to maximize time spent.

The idea
In a major international airline… There is a particular salesman known internally as “the donut man.” Given that part of his job is to call regularly on travel agents and brief their staff on new developments (such as new routes, fares and special offers), he has a problem. If he does this one person at a time, then even in a medium-sized city agency it could take a long time to brief everyone. The agency will not let him do it with everyone at one time – telephones must be answered and business must continue. So he has evolved a cunning plan: he arranges to see half the staff at a time, and promises to arrive “bearing gifts.” At the appointed time he appears with a tray of coffees, teas, and donuts from a nearby café. Half the staff takes a break together, they gather round, and he can brief them in a convivial atmosphere. When he has finished the staff swap: the now briefed group go back on duty, and the other half take a break. They all like it. They pay attention. And they look forward to his next visit. Most important, they are up to date, and well able to steer their customers towards this particular airline in their day-to-day work.

In practice
• Think about how your customers’ businesses work
and aim to fit in with their special nature.
• Sometimes something unconventional can fit this
criterion and work well; stay open minded.

The 99 other great sales ideas featured in this book:
2. Be available
3. Make customers respect you
4. A good first impression
5. Enhancing customers’ recall of you
6. Enhancing customers’ recall of you (continued)
7. Find the decision maker
8. Close contact
9. The right weight of case
10. Don’t waste customers’ time
11. Be on time
12. Insisting on respect
13. Be willing to get your hands dirty
14. Lose your ego
15. Climb the stairs
16. Strawberries and cream
17. Use visual aids even when you cannot
18. Make payment dependent on results
19. Support their charity
20. Use a spoken logo
21. Send a card
22. Direct the meeting
23. Remember that it is a commercial transaction
24. Make your customer improve your productivity
25. Adopt the right attitude
26. Stand up to customers
27. Tackle a new category of customer
28. Challenge the customer’s culture
29. Think of a number
30. Let one customer sell to another
31. Work round inherent problems
32. Be afraid, be very afraid
33. Making administration assist sales
34. The usefulness of “gatekeepers”
35. Check, check, and check again
36. Mix business and chat appropriately
37. Now you’re motoring
38. Volume, volume, volume
39. Line up the whole team behind the sales person
40. Sell in collaboration with someone else
41. Tell people you’ve won an award
42. Make people believe you are successful
43. Show people your size
44. Surprise them with your writing
45. Ask for referrals
46. Remove fear of risk
47. Take your time
48. Put over a consistent message
49. Speak their language
50. Make description ring a bell
51. Surprise customers with speed of response
52. Keep customers thinking of you
53. Guarantee as much as you can
54. Keep their attention
55. Use your customers’ timing
56. Get the competition into the discussion
57. Avoid giving a discount
58. Promises, promises
59. Maximize your collection of useful information
60. Enhance your profile as a professional
61. Not at your convenience
62. Assess competitors’ sales performance
63. When the customer does not like you
64. Work the logistics
65. Dramatically memorable
66. Understand customers’ culture
67. Admin rules OK
68. Get out of here
69. With a little help from a friend
70. En route to success
71. Don’t be totally self-sufficient
72. The ubiquitous sales meeting
73. Motivation as a catalyst
74. Put value on information about the customer
75. Take a long-term view
76. Brag, but do so convincingly
77. Use complaints as a springboard
78. Agree the impossible
79. Focus on users
80. Log objections
81. Make an exhibition of yourself
82. A strong brand
83. Use that sales meeting
84. Not just logical
85. Let competition help
86. Long-term contact
87. On your feet
88. Be prepared
89. The power of description
90. A telling song
91. Big strategies
92. No problem
93. Because you’re special
94. The small print
95. Benchmark yourself
96. Show to sell
97. Define your job
98. Go on foot
99. Never tell obvious lies
100. Why are you calling?