Traits of Top Salespeople

"Top salespeople are assertive: they are not afraid to ask for the sale or address concerns."

Author: Sean O'Shaughnessey
What Is Your Personal Benefit To Your Prospect?

What Is Your Personal Benefit To Your Prospect?

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There are three components to the benefits to every sales transaction. Those component benefits are the product that you sell, the company that you represent in that sale, and yourself. It is easy to understand the benefits of the first two, the latter can be more difficult.

Invariably, we all see ourselves through rose-colored glasses. It would be very difficult to do our job if we did not have a positive impression of ourselves but we cannot let that impression get in the way of our sale.

Create a standard Ben Franklin “T” chart on your Benefits and Detriments. On the left side, record all of the Benefits that you bring to your customer. On the right, put your Detriments. Make sure that each statement is in benefit format NOT feature format. You should be able to say each statement verbatim to a prospect and they will not respond with a “So….”

A bad example would be “I have been selling this service for the last 8 years.” A more appropriate statement would be “My 8 years of experience with this service allows me to guide a prospect through the decision-making process.” An example of a Detriment may be “I don’t understand the business drivers of my prospect’s industry.”

After you have created the chart, you need to use it. Make sure that all of your Benefits have been communicated to your customers and prospects. If you ask them the benefit that you bring to them, would they say any of the items on the list?

More importantly, look at your Detriments. How are you going to get them fixed? If this was a problem with the product or the company (the other two components) there would be a committee formed and people would be working hard to fix the issues. You need to do the same – sit down with your manager, your peers, and your trusted existing customers. Find their perspective on how you can improve the items on your Detriment list. You may even want to sit down with your significant other and let them guide your thoughts.

Another worthwhile endeavor in this process is to sell against yourself. Argue with yourself as to the true worth of a Benefit. This will make you defend its importance and develop a stronger case. Similarly, by internally berating a Detriment, you may discover how to make it a positive or at least diminish its negative influence.

This exercise only works if you are 100% honest with yourself. This is not your resume. You are only going to share this with 3 people: “Me, Myself, and I.” Use this list to focus on your Benefits and to take corrective action on the Detriments.

Photo by MinaLegend

9 Productivity Mistakes You’re Making Each Morning

9 Productivity Mistakes You’re Making Each Morning

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Studies show that mornings count when it comes to being successful. But are you guilty of wasting some of the most crucial minutes of our day checking social media or grabbing a coffee? There are a number of things you’re probably doing every morning that are actually hindering your productivity.

If you’re an avid coffee drinker, you might be surprised to find out that drinking coffee between 8 and 10 a.m can make you more stressed throughout the day. That’s because caffeine early in the morning interferes with the time that the stress hormone, cortisol, is peaking in your body. It’s best to get your fix between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Not all of the mistakes we all make in the first 10 minutes of the day are caused by procrastination. In fact getting on with our work in the wrong way can have a negative an impact on our productivity. Checking your work emails first thing is a common mistake. New York University’s Adam Alter says that it takes an average of 25 minutes to get back to being most productive after you’ve checked your emails.

9 Productivity Mistakes You’re Making in the First 10 Minutes of Your Work Day, courtesy of Resume.io

Header Photo by @lattefarsan
35 Productivity Habits

35 Productivity Habits

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Tech

  • Limit email replies to one per minute
  • If you can’t understand what an email asks, don’t answer
  • Tune out the news. Nothing important happens, most of the time.
  • Do not answer the phone, unless it’s a true emergency. (Emergencies are rare)
  • Use keyboard shortcuts.

Clothes

  • Define your fashion uniform.
  • Wear it daily.
  • Wear smart fabrics.
  • Carry an all-occasion outfit with you.
  • Discard what you stop using.

Hacks

  • Visualize your end product
  • Start before you feel ready, avoid chicken-and-egg.
  • Assume you are right, when in doubt
  • Decisive is productive.
  • If you can’t write it down, record it.
  • When you read something helpful, write to the author.
  • Manage anxiety – run, swim, dance
  • Sleep more. You will get more done.
  • Take naps when energy runs low.

Schedule

  • Do the easiest things first.
  • Prioritize one item per day.
  • Set a daily routine.
  • No meeting unless they are decisive.
  • Better done than perfect.

Food

  • Routinize your diet.
  • Eat healthy food.
  • Get delivery to save time.
  • Negotiate a daily deal with your trusted cafe.

Mind

  • Notice the 80/20 rule. Which 20%? of work produces 80% of the results?
  • Focus on the important, suppress the urgent.
  • Decide the outcome before even starting.
  • Start ‘Idea Dump’ book for genius ideas you can’t work on now.
  • Eliminate trivial decisions, like what to wear.
  • Learn to ignore. No need to respond to everything.
  • Do a bad first draft. You can’t edit a blank page.
  • Treat time as your money.

 

Header Photo by mohamed_hassan (Pixabay)
The Perfect Elevator Pitch

The Perfect Elevator Pitch

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Elevator pitches are important, not just for people, but for businesses as well. A presenter must consider many things including the audience, message, and place when crafting a pitch, and provide value in less than a minute. Awkward physical and tonal cues can be off-putting, so practicing is crucial. When talking to potential clients, investors, or even partners, it’s vital to be prepared to give a pitch quickly and effectively.

Header Photo by TheMuuj
Analysis of LinkedIn Profile Photos

Analysis of LinkedIn Profile Photos

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I have written about the need for a quality LinkedIn profile image before. It really is an essential element to your profile as prospects and customers get to know you better.

JDP did an excellent analysis of the types of images (and no images) on LinkedIn. Jump over to their site for more details but here are the results of their study.
9 Tips To Help You With Time Management

9 Tips To Help You With Time Management

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Here are some tips that will now help you develop your time management.

1 – Set goals

I discussed in an earlier article on how to set your goals and you may want to click through are read how to set goals. I am a firm believer that you need to set five goals each for your family, your personal development, and your career.

2 – Find a good time management system and use it.

Everyone is different in how this works. There are lots of blogs out there to help you (here, here, here, here, and here for example). Pick one and stick to it.

3 – Tackle your biggest tasks in the morning.

The different systems out there will give you different advice. However, as a salesperson, your day will almost definitely get crazier as the day goes on. Therefore, every morning you need to make sure you accomplish your number one task before you do anything else. In my opinion, your number one task every day is to make sure that in the next two weeks, you have enough appointments scheduled with your largest opportunities in your pipeline.

4 – Follow the 80-20 rule. Another great time management tip is to use the 80-20 Rule, also known as the Pareto Principle.

In this case, 80% of your revenue is going to come from 20% of your activity. The Pareto Principle reinforces that you need to focus on your big deals as you need to have your 25 people in the Power Matrix covered and comfortable with you, your product, and your company.

5 – Schedule email response times.

Don’t respond to incoming emails until you accomplish your top goals for the day. Yes, this is difficult, but you need to ignore the internal marketing emails and even the emails from your boss until you get your top goal accomplished – get your appointments scheduled for the next two weeks.

6 – Take frequent breaks when working.

If you have an office day, you need to stand up and walk around every 45 minutes. Get a coffee or water. Look outside for a few minutes. Please don’t go out and smoke though because smoking is an almost guaranteed trip to the hospital or the morgue when you get older.

7 – Meditate or exercise every day.

Some time-management gurus will tell you to do this first thing in the morning. This may not be possible for some sales professionals due to interactions with customers or maybe the home office in other time zones. Instead, either workout or meditate (or both) sometime during the day. If morning works for you, that is better, but daily is essential.

8 – Make to-do lists in the evening for the next day.

Before you check out of work for the day, update your task list. If you prefer a piece of paper, then rewrite a clean version for the next day. If you prefer a software-based task list, review it and make sure it is accurate. Make this the last thing you do every day. Make sure that making your goal for appointments per week is one of the top one or two things for the next day.

9 – Turn off social media app alerts.

Every day you will log into social media to make sure you are appropriately communicating to your prospects. You need to create a reputation that you are making them smarter. However, confine this interaction to once in the morning and then once in the afternoon. For your personal social life of looking at cat videos and pictures of your niece – do that in the evening on your own time.

Header Photo by TeroVesalainen (Pixabay)
March 2026
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