Practical Wisdom from Kahle Way Sales Systems

At its most fundamental level, business is always and only about three things:  Money, people and systems.           There is a huge body of content revolving around money in business.            When it comes to people, as an element in business, there is an equally impressive body of knowledge and infrastructure.             When it comes to systems, however, there is not nearly the quantity and...

"Low price, low price, low price."  It's the mantra that sales people in every industry segment are hearing more these days than ever before.  But, is low price the motivating factor in a customer's decision to buy? Here's a secret that almost nobody knows, including all those gurus telling you to sell value.  They don't always buy the best value.   But, they can invariably be counted on to buy th...

My wife is a crises counselor.  You would think that, by the very nature of the word crises , she would see a continually changing group of clients who were dealing with the occasional crises.  Not so.  She frequently engages with the same group of folks who lurch from one crises to another.  They never learn from their mistakes, continue the same behavior that brought on the original crises, and...

Dealing with prospects is one of the most daunting and frustrating parts of the salesperson's job. In this podcast, I respond to two questions from salespeople about key aspects of this difficult task.  You'll gain some ideas you can use today.

There are, in the world of sales and sales systems, certain practices that have such an enormous impact on the company and the market that they are in a special class of activities that call for executive involvement at the highest levels. One of that handful of activities is the creation of a value-added position (VAP).  Next to the company's vision, mission and values statements, a VAP contains...

I recently came across some research that confirmed what many of us in the profession of educating sales people have known for years: That purchasers would be "much more likely" to buy from a sales person if that sales person would just "listen" to the customer. (1)  The survey found that some of the worst offenders were experienced sales people.           Listening is one of the four fundamental...

Goal-setting is one of those hallowed practices that belong in every leader's arsenal. We've all heard that people who set goals are far more successful than those who don't.  And every well-run business has a policy and a practice of setting annual goals for its various operational departments.  And yet, there are times and situations where it may be appropriate to do something else.

"Every profession expects the serious practitioner of that profession to continually seek out the best practices of that profession, and then to roll them into his/her routine with discipline."           That statement comes out of my mouth in almost every seminar or keynote that I present.  Sometimes I follow it up with the ironic observation that there is, apparently, one exception to that rule...

Becoming a learning organization – gaining the ability for an organization and its people to change in response to the changing world around them -- may be the ultimate success skill for the Information Age. For adults on the job, learning is synonymous to changed behavior.

In the most trying circumstances, having a greater purpose can be a powerful mechanism to see you through.  Here's my personal story.  

We are in the middle of some difficult times.  Rather than belabor that point, I'd like to come to the heart of the problem:  What do we do?            In an earlier podcast, I shared some suggestions to help individuals navigate these turbulent waters.  In this podcast, I'm focusing on sales forces. So, this is specifically aimed at owners, CEOs, Chief Sales Officers and other sales leaders.  Her...

We are in the middle of some difficult times.  Rather than belabor that point, I'd like to come to the heart of the problem:  What do we do?  We need to answer that question in an immediate, urgent basis:  What do we do right now?            We also need to answer the question in a strategic, on-going way.  What do we do this week, this month, this year?  Ultimately, as we sort through our lives,...

"Your price is too high!"  The infamous price objection.  Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow wipe it out and never hear it again?           Unfortunately, that will never happen.  Too many of the people with whom we deal are paid to get the best deal they can.  And that means asking for a better price, even when they know they are getting a great deal.             That being said, it is stil...

I was young, cocky and a bit full of myself when I had one of the most humbling experiences of my life, and learned a lesson that has stuck with me for decades.  Personal responsibility is easy to say, but quite a bit more difficult to actually embed into your life.

Should a salesperson invest in his/her own development?  If so, how much time and how much money.  I respond to those questions in this episode. 

"Is there one business model that you would recommend to a budding entrepreneur?"  That was the question a young man asked me recently. I reflected for a moment over the past 25 years, and answered this way: "No.  I've worked with over 500 businesses, and in that pack, there were lots of different business models. What I've seen is that the model is less important than the implementation on the pa...

If there is only one practice within the scope of the professional sales person upon which you can focus, let it be to gain mastery in asking better sales questions. A series of better sales questions provides you leverage and a competitive edge at every stage of the sales process.

Motivation is one of the least understood concepts in the business world. If you want to achieve any degree of success in your career, you can and should motivate yourself.  Here's a first step that will impact the rest of your life.  

Building rapport with customers is a fundamental sales skill.  Yet, few salespeople have been trained in the specific tactics to facilitate this. Here are seven ways to build rapport with anyone.

Whether you are a small businessperson or a professional salesperson, you can utilize a powerful strategy to take your performance to dramatically higher levels -- leverage.   Leverage revolves around the idea of multiplying the effects of some effort to gain more value from it.  Leverage will take you to a higher level.

Are successful salespeople made or born?  It is the eternal question: the sales manager's version of nature versus nurture.         While countless books and articles have addressed "what successful salespeople do", few have described "who successful salespeople are."         I don't claim to have the last word on this, nor do I believe that this group of characteristics is the whole story.  But,...

In recent years,  I've seen a deeper degradation in the learning potential of the work force fueled by a growing inability to concentrate.  I'm afraid that much of the adult population in this country has become so conditioned to sound bytes, texts and tweets that they have lost the discipline to "do the work." Like an unused muscle, their ability to concentrate has atrophied.  On one hand, that i...

"Success," like "beauty" is a slippery term whose definition depends, in some significant way, on the perspective of the observer.  In this article, I unpack the definition of success for a salesperson.

Failure can be a powerful influence in building our character. In this podcast, we look at a couple notable failures and consider the relationship between failure and the powerful character traits of pride and humility.  This can impact your life and your career.

We are all guilty of projecting our values onto our customers. If we think nothing is worth the stated price, we subconsciously project that attitude onto our customers, and find ourselves constantly discounting.