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Defining Empathy and Understanding Why Salespeople Fail At It Sales organizations understand the power of empathy and more sales managers are teaching this powerful EQ skill. They are well-intentioned but often miss the mark. In an effort to help salespeople make an emotional connection with prospects, they teach validation/paraphrasing skills, not empathy skills. Note: Validation/paraphrasing isn’t empathy; it’s ...

The Tunnel that Meets in the Middle The Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland is, at 35.5 miles, the longest tunnel in the world, and an incredible feat of engineering. It took over $9.5 billion dollars and 14 years to complete. Tunneling is an exact science. If such a project were begun from two sides, and ...

Build a Buyer’s Trust by Sharpening Your Listening and Language Skills Listening and language skills are vital for building a buyer’s trust. As a sales professional, delivering the right messages to buyers is crucial to getting your foot in the door and then building their trust. Many times, successfully approaching and engaging buyers comes down ...

American Express Offers a Teachable Moment in Ethical Selling “Every ethics question a business person could face comes down to a question you face on your very first sale: what are you willing to do for a buck?”, Philip Broughton wrote in his book, Mastering the Art of the Sale. The question needs to be ...

Summer, unfortunately, is in its waning days and the calendar year has passed the halfway point. In your selling year, there have likely been many positives and negatives to deal with but with a heavy dose of sales optimism, you know there’s still time to take actions to drive improvement, hit your year-end numbers and ...

It was a very busy Monday at Kopp Consulting. As I was going through each task on my checklist, I needed to call a potential client. But before I even picked up the phone, I prepared what I would say if I reached his voicemail instead of him. No matter how busy I am, I ...

One of the biggest issues in any sales organization is the lack of congruency between what the overall sales strategy says and what salespeople do every day. Indeed the same issue is similarly at play between the sales plan and the plan for the entire organization. The strategy says one thing and not only do ...

What Selling Behaviors Would Change if You Worked Straight Commission? When I started my sales career, I was a commission only salesperson. I wouldn’t classify this as a gentle transition into the selling world, but it definitely made me work. Not having a base salary is a really great way to learn and develop positive ...