Practical Wisdom from Kahle Way Sales Systems

Because a salesperson's income is often unpredictable, salespeople need to develop some disciplines and principles to guide their personal finances. This article provides some tips and techniques to manage your personal finances.

Dealing with an angry or difficult customer is challenging for everyone.  The stakes are huge, and the emotions can often get out of control. Here are nine proven tips to help you handle the next confrontation with dignity and competence.

We all know the feeling.  Your key contact in one of your good accounts sheepishly admits that they have moved some business to a competitor.  No problem with your service, it was just a price issue.          Nothing is more discouraging.  You've spent years developing this account, building relationships, working hard at meeting their needs, and then, in the blink of an eye, you lose the business...

Becoming one of the master salespeople -- the top five percent in the industry -- doesn't happen by chance.  It is the result of a disciplined approach to the project of improving yourself.  In this podcast, I share some of what I've learned over my career as a salesperson and sales authority.  Compare yourself to the five steps and put in place a set of behaviors that will eventually take you to...

One of the most common thing sales people hear is: "I'm happy with my current vendor."  In other words, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  Here's how to respond.

Call reluctance is the term used to describe a salesperson's hesitancy to make the next sales call.  It's a common issue that can detract from a salesperson's performance. In this piece, we provide some solutions.  

Customers always create a perception about the sales people who call on them.  Sometimes this perception works for us, and sometimes it works against us.  By intentionally influencing our position with the customer, we can influence the customer's perception and impact the sale.  We can influence the customers' view of us by how we position ourselves.

What happens when you spend a great deal of time and effort creating a big proposal for a prospect, and discover that they gave it to their current vendor to match?  Have you been betrayed, or is there some other explanation?  In any case, what do you do?  

In a misguided attempt to stay busy and see as many people as possible, too many salespeople subscribe to the theory that any activity is good activity. Sales people now must confront an overwhelming number of potential "things to do," and that requires them to make decisions about which customers in which to invest their time, to prioritize their activities every day, and to continually choose fr...

 Here's one of the foundational principles for sales success: You'll always be more effective if you think about what you do before you do it.  In this podcast, I unpack that statement, and provide you with a step-by-step planning process you can use for to take your sales performance to a higher level.   

Sales is an emotional roller coaster, and unless you figure out how to manage those emotions and keep yourself motivated, you'll have a difficult time succeeding. Unpack this issue and gain specific ideas and techniques to keep yourself motivated.  

It's the moment that many salespeople dread.  You've asked the customer to do something – give you an appointment, issue a P.O., or schedule a demonstration and, instead of saying "Yes," the customer gives you a reason why he/she does not want to do what you've asked him or her to do. Here's how to handle the objection effectively.

The quickest way to improve your performance is to improve your use of time.  Salespeople are often guilty of these four common time wasting habits. See if you are guilty of any of them, and then eliminate them to improve your sales results.

Salespeople are overwhelmed with too much to do and not enough time in which to do it.  Something must change.  The best way to take control of your time is to change the way you think and the amount of time you spend thinking. In this post, we share three specific ways to do that.

There is something about adversity that has the power to linger forever in our memories, shaping our character and molding our behavior for the rest of our life.  Here are three keys to dealing with it effectively.

Few sales people ever stop to give thought to what it means to stay balanced.  Using a sailboat metaphor, we look at six specific initiatives to bring your life into balance and empower you to work at the most effective level.  This is a higher-level practice for the serious professional.

In our chaotic economic environment, countless things demand your attention and divert your focus.  In this unprecedented environment, we need to have a greater understanding of how we can become more effective and less scattered. That means understanding how we make decisions, and attending to the deeper issues that impact everything else that we do. 

Salespeople have a tendency to repeat certain negative behaviors and turn them into habits.  Generally, they are not even aware of them.  These negative habits detract from their performance. Here's number five on the list of the five most common sales mistakes. 

There are certain negative habits that B2B salespeople commonly create.  These unconscious habits reduce their effectiveness -- and most don't know that they have them.  Here's number four in the series.   

Over the decades that I've been involved in sales, I've worked with tens of thousands of sales people.  Certain negative tendencies -- mistakes that sales people make -- keep surfacing.  Here is number three of my top five.  See to what degree you (or your sales force) may be guilty of them -- Mistake Number Three: Contentment with the superficial

Over the decades that I've been involved in sales, I've worked with tens of thousands of sales people.  Certain negative tendencies -- mistakes that sales people make -- keep surfacing.  Here is number two of my top five.  See to what degree you (or your sales force) may be guilty of them.--  Mistake Number Two: Lack of thoughtfulness

Business to business sales people often make the same mistakes.  Most are not even aware of them.  In this series, I'm going to describe the five most common mistakes sales people make, and provide a step-by-step format for overcoming them.

The idea of entertaining your customers is often a after-thought for many sales people.  From my experience, strategically entertaining your customers is one of the best things you do.  Join me to unpack this issue, and gain several 'how-to- tips.

We all know it -- customers have less time to see salespeople today than ever before.  They have too much to do and not enough time in which to do it.  That makes the job of the field sales person much more difficult.  That's why the 'value-added sales call' is so important.  Dig into this new challenge with me.