Why do some sales close while others don’t? I am a strong advocate of win-loss reviews as an unparalleled way to answer this question. Among a group of win-loss reports I reviewed recently willingness to offer “at-risk” pricing emerged as a newer differentiator. Like it or not, clients looking for another way to mitigate risk,… Read More
About Linda Richardson
And in This Corner …
Relationship selling has been taking a beating lately. Certainly buyers have changed and many of the sales models that were effective a short time ago are no longer relevant. New models must be applied. In the book The Challenger Sale, the Relationship Builder salesperson (defined as one who advocates for the customer, is generous with… Read More
Changing the Sales Conversation
In this era of iPads, iPhones, and apps, sales communications may be growing, but sales conversations are dying—and so are many sales. This book, the product of several decades developing hundreds of thousands of salespeople all over the world, is not about how to sell but about how to sell differently. It guides you in… Read More
Changing the Status Quo: From this, to that
We know that sales conversations have changed. But what is the impact on final sales presentations? The days of product superiority as your key sales message even when customized to a client’s needs has been replaced by sharing of insights and the delivering of business outcomes. Just as the conversation in your sales call dialogues… Read More
Conversation Chemistry
We know that clients value insights and ideas. But what happens when, as often is the case, the insights and ideas conflict with your client’s view of the world. What is the best way to present those ideas so that clients are receptive and positive, rather than resistant looking for an escape hatch? Norman Vincent… Read More
Critical Communication Skills 2020
When I founded Richardson, I identified six skills and used them as the dialogue thread that ran through and connected all of our programs. In many ways the training was based on them. For a number of years this model worked very well without major revisions. But the rise of the internet and subsequent explosion… Read More
Discern -The Word for 2015
Recently, a radio host used the word discerning – a word not commonly heard. Even she commented that the word has become obsolete. Discerning is the ability to see and understand people, situations, and things in a deep and clear way. And I believe it is the key to insight. Where does insight come from? … Read More
Disrupting the Old Guard
The NY Times, May 5th reported that technology’s generation of rebels has now almost completely disrupted itself. It described how the longtime leaders of industry giants like Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, and IBM have stepped down and on Monday John Chambers, Cisco System chief executive since 1995, said he was stepping down. These leaders were the … Read More
Feedback with Feeling
Feedback can be hard to give and hard to get. Almost everyone tenses up when the words “I have some feedback for you” are spoken. But in organizations where feedback is a part of the culture, people ask for feedback if it is not forthcoming. Its people’s feelings about feedback that is the problem. We… Read More
Finding Your Creativity in Unlikely Places
All children are creative. But for most, creativity is repressed as a part of growing up. We often think of creativity as an innate, indefinable gift that a person is born with or not, something that is not teachable. Theresa Amabile, head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard, has dedicated her entire research program… Read More
Have You Been Ghosted?
“Ghosted” is a relatively new term. It is also know as the slow fade. Ghosting is the ending a relationship by simply disappearing without an explanation. It is now a part of the lexicon of the dating world. Research suggests that technology and on-line contact is making it easier for people to ghost because of… Read More
Help Your Clients Think “Different”
I participated in the conference on Thought Leadership on the Sales Profession at Columbia University recently. One of speakers got a laugh when he expressed concern about “big data and small ideas.” Today sales leaders and sales professionals are being supported with big data to help them understand more about their clients so they can anticipate needs… Read More
Is There Room for the Lone Wolf Salesperson?
After a client declined to hire a high performing salesperson for fear he would be a “lone wolf” I began to think about the lone wolf candidate. Is there a place for him or her in today’s sales world? I asked this question to several heads of sales and the responses varied from maybe to… Read More
Rapport: A Disappearing Act
Sales has become data driven. For decades, sales was thought of as instinctive, intuitive, genetic. That is no longer the case and, for the most part, for the better. Sales organizations now use sophisticated tools to mine data to set their strategies, prepare their sales forces, and reach their target markets. But despite sales becoming… Read More
Recovering from a Bad …
Coach Gregg Popovich has won his third Coach of the Year award. This comes only one year after his Spurs’ devastating loss to the Miami Heat in the MBA finals. Despite the loss, he led his team to a league best 62-20 record, which has created an advantage in the play off. How did Coach… Read More
Sales Training Redefined
We know that learning decreases over time when there is no reinforcement. But why? And what and when is ideal reinforcement For decades there has been a narrow concept of how learning happens. In that narrow definition, the classroom is the nerve center of learning. Things like pre-work and reinforcement are nice to have, but… Read More
Selling at the Speed of Sound-Bites
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it make a sound? If a team makes a sales presentation and nobody remembers it, did they make a sale? The answer to the first question maybe yes, but as every seasoned salesperson knows, the answer to the second is definitely no. Sound… Read More
Selling in the Cyber Age: Why Your Listening Skills Matter More Than Ever
When I founded Richardson over 30 years ago, in addition to designing content and selling I taught sales and sales leadership. Most of my clients and seminar participants were men. In those days, women in B2B sales were considered an oddity. Many questioned how women in sales could possibly travel with men, specifically married men…. Read More
Selling in the World of the “Brilliant Machine”
You sell with drive and rightly so. But do you sell with heart? I pose this question in the final chapter of my new book, Changing the Sales Conversation. In that chapter I explore the difference between being client-centered and human-centered and why selling with heart and establishing trust are major differentiators today as knowledge… Read More
Selling with Insight: It’s NOT Sales 101
I am often asked if Consultative Selling is still relevant. When Consultative Selling (customer-need based selling) became the predominant mode of selling starting in the mid 1970s, we thought it was the Golden Age of Selling. What could be better than customized win-win solutions? We thought we hit the “target” perfectly. But — the target… Read More
Stop the Churn
Retaining customers is a complex issue. I worked last week with a client, new to his role. He described how his new firm’s customer retention rate had been on a steady, steep decline for the past few years. His solution to curb churn based on some customer feedback and experience was to change the current… Read More
Terminating a Team Member without Being The Terminator
To terminate is to bring to an end. If you have had to terminate someone you know things don’t get much harder or sadder. Most managers dread this part of the job more than any other. They are concerned for the team member—How will this person get a job? What will he or she do?… Read More
The Biggest Influencer in a Customer’s Decision to Buy
Peter will be graduated from a university this year. He sought my advice: Should he take a job in sales with a major company or a management track position in the same company? He liked the idea of sales, but his main concern was the viability of starting a profession in sales. And while statistics… Read More
The Six Critical Skills for the NEW Sales Dialogue
The longstanding compact customers once had with salespeople is broken and it’s not coming back. Just a short time ago customers relied on salespeople to learn about services, products, and solutions. But now customers are advancing in their buying cycle without salespeople, going it alone until they are mid-way through the sale—or later. This clearly… Read More