April 2009

Blog Monthly Archive

  • 26/04/2009 - 21:53
    Selling is just a conversation - mini training course taster

    We gave a mini taster sales training course to WSI on Friday in woking. We went through the sales process:
    P - preparation
    I - generate interest
    S - Survey their requirements using SPIID
    T - test your understanding
    D - demonstrate
    C - close the deal

    Particular attention was spent on:

    Preparation phase and POC - Premise, Objective and Content
    Test phase and MANDACT which is about qualification and very important:

    M - money
    A - ability
    N - need
    D - decision
    A - authority
    C - competition
    T - timescale

    The full course runs over 1 or 2 days and also includes 6 * 30 minute tele-coaching sessions.

  • 22/04/2009 - 10:11
    2 of 7 Sales Qualification - MANDACT – (A) - Authority, who decides?

    Sales qualification is key for a sales manager, rep or situation. We need to understand of the prospect is worthwhile. Does it fit our business, can they afford us, is it worth putting the effort in.

    If we are winning deals we are probably also losing them , but we need to make sure we put effort into the deals we can win, and less or none to those that are borderline. The worst thing is to put serious effort in a deal we then lose.

    We use a qualification acronym – MANDACT to help us remember what information we need to obtain from the prospect.

  • 08/04/2009 - 12:49
    Sales qualification - MANDACT - the key to sales efficiency.

    Sales qualification is key for a sales manager, rep or situation. We need to understand of the prospect is worthwhile. Does it fit our business, can they afford us, is it worth putting the effort in. If we are winning deals we are also losing them , but we need to make sure we put effort into the deals we can win, and less or none to those that are borderline. The worst thing is to put serious effort in a deal we then lose.

    We use a qualification acronym – MANDACT to help us remember what information we need to obtain from the prospect.

    1. Sales Qualification - MANDACT – (M) - Money, not always easy to get a straight answer to this question, but useful if you can. Ways of asking the question are:
    • Where is the money coming from?
    • Is there a budget authorized?
    • What budget is available?
    • Can you give me an indication of the range of the budget £55, £5000, £25,000?

  • 02/04/2009 - 15:05
    Social media

    Every body is familiar with the phenomenon that is Facebook as well as many of the literally hundreds of other social networking sites such as MySpace, Flickr, Bebo and recently receiving a lot of attention is Twitter. In the ‘professional’ or business world other networks such as LinkedIn and ecademy are also becoming prominent.

    Interestingly these social sites whilst providing communication and amusement for the 11,000,000 (2007) UK members and 200m worldwide. They have also become important business tools. You may think these work only for B2C companies, but it turns out that they are also useful for B2B companies, selling almost any type of product.

    Getting found on the internet (there are 31Biliion searches on Google each month) is one strand of doing business in hyperspace this day. Using simple techniques on a raft of social networking sites is one way of driving traffic to you web site and hence onto find out more about you, make contact or make purchases.