How to Make Referrals a Winning Part of Your Prospecting Of all of the possible sources of leads, referrals are often the hottest and most desirable. Brokered by someone who knows you first-hand and trusts your work, there’s an implicit recommendation instilled, which carries considerable weight. The problem is that sales reps too often fail to pursue these opportunities. Here’s a four-step process to bolster your long-term success by getting your sales reps to take a proactive approach to gaining referrals. 1) Timing There are always busy business cycles to avoid when approaching your contacts for something that’s not essential to them. You should obviously avoid those occasions, but is there a right time to ask for referrals? Use common sense — ask when your contacts are happy, not frustrated. Realize that each person is different and has varying attitudes and receptivity to being asked to provide a referral. Therefore, trust your instincts, and ask when you are comfortable with your relationship and the work that you may be doing for them. When you’ve just finished a successful project, reached a significant milestone, or have otherwise helped your contact, these are likely good times to broach the subject. When circumstances are different, you should hold off. For example, if you have something big to deliver but haven’t yet done so, avoid appearing distracted and looking toward your next target. You’ll look selfish and unprofessional. The other aspect of timing is frequency: How often do you ask? There’s no rule, but monthly is likely too often and annually too infrequent. You want it to feel natural and not like you’re being a mooch or pest. 2) Obstacles What prevents sales reps from asking for referrals? As is often the case with prospecting, there’s discomfort in calling people we don’t know. Most obstacles are behavioral, not procedural. If you have something of value to share, then you shouldn’t have anything to hide or be shy about. People get stuck and feel timid because asking for a referral is more personal than cold calling or blasting mass e-mails. The risk of your contact saying "no" or failing to make a personal connection is enough to stop people from trying. Present yourself as a resource. This mirrors how aggressive you are (or aren’t). Offer to help, and set yourself up as someone who can be useful, even if your prospect isn’t interested in buying now. There’s no harm in asking — if you don’t ask, you don’t receive. Other common obstacles include a clash of culture ("That’s not how we do things here — we’re not so forward!") and a lack of process ("How do I know who my contacts know?"). Once detected, these can be corrected. 3) Sources Learn to leverage LinkedIn, which provides a great network of your connections and theirs. The more robust your network, the more opportunities you can identify. Consider traditional sources, such as current and former clients. Also tap into nontraditional sources, such as former colleagues, classmates, neighbors, and relatives. The closer your connection is to the prospect, the better. It should be someone whom the prospect would consider credible and working in his or her best interest. Hopefully, your common connection has already experienced "the value" that you bring and would be willing to broker the connection. You want your contact to feel positive about making the referral — it shouldn’t be hard for your contact to understand why you’re asking. If you’re pursuing a nontraditional source, then provide additional context or reasoning to help quell any concerns. 4) Making Contact Ideally, your contact would make the introduction for you via e-mail or a meeting. Simply giving you a name and contact details to use on your own might fall flat. Draft an e-mail that your contact can send to the prospect, copying you and getting the ball rolling. —————————————- Complimentary New Research Report     To download this report, please click here. The post How to Make Referrals a Winning Part of Your Prospecting appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Overcoming Obstacles to Prospecting In a recent post regarding making referrals part of your prospecting, we highlighted the importance of overcoming obstacles. The point was that, while seeking referrals is one of the best ways to secure warm leads, too many sales reps fail to pursue them due to real or perceived obstacles in their way. Overcoming those obstacles will undoubtedly lead to greater success, so let’s take a deeper look at prospecting obstacles and ways to manage or avoid them. Most Obstacles to Prospecting Are Behavioral There are several reasons  for obstacles that stand in sales reps’ way when prospecting. As you examine the list below, you’ll realize that these aren’t physical barriers; rather, they are mental and behavioral challenges to be faced. Too busy/no time (other tasks have greater urgency, are too time-consuming, not at a good time, etc.) Lack of network Fear of rejection Feeling of imposing/intruding Outside of comfort zone Lack of success Frustration Lack of a process, discipline Bad experiences (just finished a "bad" call; not up to the next one) While some excuses may be valid, sales reps too often succumb to them and fail to grow beyond their comfort zone. It’s up to sales managers and leaders to instigate change. Three Critical Success Factors to Overcoming Obstacles: Skill, Knowledge, and Will Concerns of time and process can be mitigated with attention. Sales reps need to develop sufficient confidence in themselves and what they’re selling to get over most other hurdles. This can be achieved by mastering the requisite skill, knowledge, and will to prospect beyond their comfort zone. Build confidence by ensuring that sales reps have the necessary skills to do their jobs. There may be industry- or product-specific skills to develop to help sales reps relate to their buyers, but efforts should also focus on basic selling skills like presence, questioning, positioning, checking, and negotiating (as well as overcoming obstacles). Be prepared to practice and struggle a bit. It’s no different from getting better at shooting free-throws in basketball or performing surgery — developing any skill requires practice. It’s cliché, but you get out of it what you put into it. With practice and meaningful attempts, sales reps will gain invaluable experience and enhance their selling technique. Possessing knowledge is table stakes — if you’re not acquiring the necessary knowledge to stay on top (or ahead) of industry and business trends, then you’re going to fail. Sales reps must know what’s relevant and how it applies to their prospects’ businesses. Having the will to tackle fears, do what’s right, practice, and the courage to trudge on is critical. Sales reps must be persistent, possess a positive "I can do this" attitude, and maintain perspective. At the end of the day, you’re just making a phone call (for example), not scaling Mt. Everest; your life isn’t in danger. But, if you don’t try, you’re never going to succeed. Managers: Coach Your Reps If you want your sales reps to challenge themselves, raise their game, and overcome obstacles that inhibit their prospecting, then make it part of your culture. Everybody talks about it, but too few take action. Overcoming obstacles should be driven by the sales leader from the top down. Lead by example, measure and inspect, and hold your people accountable. It gets back to the importance of coaching. Leaders don’t do it enough or do it right. For many, overcoming obstacles is a mindset and behavior change that requires time, as well as frequent dialogue with and support of, their managers. Don’t be a barrier to your sales team’s success — lead the charge to change! Complimentary New Research Report     To download this report, please click here.   The post Overcoming Obstacles to Prospecting appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

You Can’t Afford Free Sales Training A client once told me that even if a competitor were to offer free sales training courseware and tools, it would not be wise to accept. So why is free sales training not a good enough value? The short answer is that the cost of the courseware itself is almost always the smallest piece of the overall expense for any sales training and performance intervention. The following two categories dominate the cost of sales training and deserve greater consideration before moving forward: Lost selling time — This is, by far, the largest and most important cost category to consider. If you take a salesperson out of the field for a material period of time, you lose sales revenue and, most importantly, it is a significant expense. It’s pure economics 101 at work, with the calculation taking into account the total average revenue per salesperson, the gross margin, the total number of selling days, and the size of the training population. Costs are large, usually very large, but the returns are even higher — if, and only if, you have a quality intervention, sales behavior changes and sales increase. Even a small gain of, say, 1% in sales performance per person post-training can provide a tremendous present value contribution, outweighing all costs by a factor of 10. Out of Pocket Costs — This is the second-largest cost factor, but it is small in comparison to lost selling time. Still, there’s no reason not to control all costs. While basic skills can be learned through eLearning tools or other online delivery technologies, problem-solving and other higher-level skills are most effectively improved in a real-time, instructor-led environment. The expense of bringing people from far-flung locations to a common site can include airfare, car rentals, hotels, meals, and other miscellaneous travel costs and should be incurred only to build skills that cannot be built in bite-sized pieces in the field without impacting sales time. When you take these factors into account, it’s clear that courseware and the facilitators who deliver training make up the smallest expense category. The problem is that buyers of sales training, often in the Learning & Development group, only have control over this last category. For them, the cost of training courseware and delivery takes a major bite out of their entire budget. They put less focus on lost selling time and out-of-pocket costs because those hit the line organization. L&D are good stewards of their budget, so "free" training might look pretty good. But, free training that does not change sales behavior as much as a higher-quality intervention can cost the company big bucks. For example, a highly customized sales training program — one that’s aligned with the company’s culture, sales process, actual client needs and situations and requires application of the client’s competitive advantage — can drive significant returns well over the cost to implement. Trying to save money on training at the expense of quality, fit, and effectiveness is a false economy. Investing in quality can drive major performance improvement, both behaviorally and in top-line revenues. So, why focus on shaving the smallest cost factor and run the risk of diminishing quality and results? The tradeoff might save the L&D budget, but it’s certainly not in the company’s best interest. Bottom-line conclusion? With the high return that comes from improving sales performance, companies are almost always better off going with the highest-quality training that can have the most impact on changing behaviors and performance. If a less expensive training program gets that done, fine. But, it’s unlikely to be as effective as higher-quality (and yes, higher cost) ones. Simply put, the cost for sales training programs is but a fraction of the return that can be achieved. Why would any company take two or three days’ time from the entire sales organization and bring them together for training, only to be parsimonious about the experience and not secure changes in key sales behavior? That’s why I can say, you can’t afford free sales training. And, you also can’t afford not to choose the highest-quality program to drive performance change. Complimentary New Research Report     To download this report, please click here.   The post You Can’t Afford Free Sales Training appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Measuring Sales Training Effectiveness: When Quick and Approximate is Enough When organizations invest in sales training, they are eager to know how their investments are paying off. Learning the answer doesn’t take complex research design or studies of the sort published in scholarly journals. Quick and approximate measures are often enough. The changes in behaviors and sales results post-training should be major, not minor ones. The need is for visible evidence to build a reasonably high level of confidence that the sales training intervention led to a material change in results. The standard research design for measuring such changes is to compare control group vs. experimental group results. This works in scientific discovery but doesn’t really suit sales performance system interventions. Who wants to be in the control group and be "left behind"? An easier method for assessing impact is to measure performance during the rollout period. New sales training is typically rolled out in stages, especially in large organizations. This provides an ideal opportunity to compare the results of those who have been through the training vs. those who have yet to be trained. This can be done weekly, monthly, quarterly — whatever measurement period makes the most sense. Ideally, you would capture the results for each month following the sales training. If, when examining the data, you see results between groups are alike — that is, the first month after training provides similar increases in revenue — then consistent trends can be noted. As each new group goes through training, you might need to adjust the results for systemic changes between periods, such as with seasonality or other regular patterns in the business. These adjustments can help factor out changes not related to the training, helping you maintain an apples-to-apples comparison. It is possible to design a measurement system that adjusts for many different variables and detects small changes in performance, but that would be both complicated and essentially immaterial. I would argue that quick and approximate measurement is enough. The material changes are the ones that are most important, revealing visible evidence of the value delivered from the training. The results you are looking for should enable you to say: "In the last period, revenue for those who went through the sales training went up by X%, on average, compared with those who have yet to be trained." It’s hard to argue with evidence like that. It’s even harder to argue against training that achieves such measurable results. Complimentary New Research Report     To download this report, please click here.   The post Measuring Sales Training Effectiveness appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

  Three Missteps in Sales Coaching A sales manager’s most important job is coaching. An effective sales coach can accelerate learning, change behavior, and boost the performance of both individuals and the entire sales team. The sales coaching process we use at Richardson is both simple and effective. When followed, the results are clear. The problem is, sales coaching only works if managers do it properly. These are three common missteps we see in sales coaching: Telling vs. asking The key to effective sales coaching can be captured in three words: they talk first. Our coaching model is all about asking specific, neutral, open-ended questions — and then, drilling down further with more questions. Coaching by asking allows coaches to learn about their sales teams and the situations that they face. It builds commitment and buy-in and helps sales professionals take responsibility for their own learning. There are times when coaching by telling is appropriate, such as an urgent situation in which there is no time to do anything but quickly tell and when moving toward disciplinary action. But, this is always the exception, never the rule. Directing vs. collaborating If coaches remember to ask instead of tell, they often do not ask enough questions. They might start with, "What are your thoughts?" or, "How do you feel the call went?" but tend to slowly put on their manager hats and start formulating solutions and giving their opinions. In three words: they take over. Instead, coaches need to probe more to gain greater insights. Ask questions, such as, "What ideas do you have?" "What do you think the issue is?" "What is getting in the way?" "What steps will you take?" No clear and measurable objective for the sales coaching session If you do not know specifically what you want to get out of the coaching session, the conversation will be too long, ineffective, and confusing. Too often, a coach will say: "My objective is for John to increase sales by 20%." That is certainly a measurable objective, but it is not SMART. In a 20- to 30-minute coaching session, there should be a desired outcome based on a SMART behavioral objective. This means it should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable, and Time-bound. So, if you want John to increase sales by 20%, what behaviors does he need to work on? What is getting in the way of his achieving this goal? Maybe he is not making enough prospecting calls, or he is not talking to the decision maker. Once these areas are pinpointed by the team member, the conversation can focus on developmental actions. Maybe John works on identifying the decision makers at targeted accounts and schedules phone calls with them over the next three weeks. That is a behavior that the coach can measure and follow up on three weeks later. By remembering these three simple things — asking instead of telling, collaborating instead of directing, and focusing on SMART objectives for each sales coaching session — sales managers and their teams can improve their performance and be more successful. Learn more about Richardson’s Developmental Sales Coaching Programs                 The post Three Missteps in Sales Coaching appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Why Sales Objections Can be Opportunities As sales professionals, we are quite familiar with sales objections. We hear them on a daily basis, and sometimes, several times a day. We can hear them at any part of the sales process: when we open, when we discuss our solution, or when we close the deal. The ability to resolve these sales objections is crucial for a number of reasons: It enables you to maintain and strengthen your client relationships. It helps you move your sales cycle forward in a non-confrontational way. It helps ensure that conversations remain positive, focused, and consultative. It gives you confidence to address tough conversations. When dealing with price objections, it ensures that you don’t discount too early or leave money on the table. Sales objections are most often thought of as roadblocks in the sales process, carrying negative connotations. In reality, sales objections represent an opportunity — the client is willing to share objections, which gives you the chance to address them and move the sale forward. It’s important that you don’t make assumptions about the objection and instead ask the client to elaborate. This demonstrates your interest in learning more, while giving you extra time to think. It also confirms that you’re dealing with the right objection, as most times, the objection you first hear can be a smokescreen. I call this the Matryoshka effect, like the Russian nesting dolls: inside one there is another and another hidden away. Clients feel strongly about their objections, and there is an emotional component attached. So, you must acknowledge and show empathy to defuse any negativity and to avoid becoming defensive or aggressive yourself. If the client says, "I am happy with my current provider (X)," you might start with, "X is a good company." Your questions should be open and linked to the objection. You don’t want to fall into the "flight" trap ("How good is their service?") or into the "fight" trap ("There are always things that a long-term provider can do better."), trying to fish for areas of weakness. You might ask, "What specifically do you like about your relationship with X provider?" These are important steps that shouldn’t be bypassed in favor of positioning your solution. As sales professionals, this is our comfort zone, our bread and butter. We love any chance to talk about our solutions. Going there too quickly risks creating other objections. Instead, take the time to relate, question, and listen. This will be the most effective use of your time. Finally, check to ensure that you get the client’s feedback. Silence doesn’t mean agreement. Don’t force a "yes" by asking a closed-ended question. You might ask: "How comfortable do you feel now that we have discussed X?" or, "What are your thoughts?" If you don’t know how to resolve objections positively, you will likely lose some deals, weaken the relationship, make the sales cycle longer, or leave money on the table. So, remember to acknowledge and get on the client’s side. Ask open-ended questions to gain more insights. Position your solution, idea, or recommendation persuasively. Finally, check to make sure you have resolved the objection. You might ask: "How does that sound?" I pose this same question to you, the reader. How does this approach to resolving sales objections sound to you? ——————- Learn More About Richardson’s Consultative Selling Solutions Want to learn more about how to resolve challenging sales objections? Click the image below or the following link to download a brochure on our award winning Consultative Selling sales training solutions! Or you can contact Jim Brodo, SVP of marketing directly at jim.brodo@richardson.com The post Why Sales Objections Can be Opportunities appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Let’s Make a Deal. New Research Reports that Best-In-Class Sales Coaching Can Shorten Your Sales Cycle Richardson recently partnered with the Aberdeen Group to provide their newest research study that looks at how adding real-deal sales coaching elements to training activities achieves better business results in today’s competing market place. The research report analyzed the specific competencies around the more in-depth sales coaching tools that help shrink the sales cycle window for the most successful sales operations teams. The study reveals several key findings, including: Best-in-class organizations are 26% more likely than all others to move beyond the basic, generic training on products, pricing, and messaging, to a formal one-on-one coaching methodology that is specific to individual needs in the pipeline or key accounts. Best-in-class organizations are 61% more often turning to external consultants and trainers for assistance Best-in-class organizations lead all others by a 16% margin in promoting a culture of continuous improvement by formally engaging in win/loss activities to understand why they win or lose deals To download Aberdeen’s full report, click here on the image below: The post Complimentary Research Study: Best-In-Class Sales Coaching Can Shorten Your Sales Cycle appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Philadelphia, PA — March 3, 2015 — Richardson, a leading global sales training and performance improvement company, has been named to TrainingIndustry.com’s 2015 Top 20 Sales Training Companies list for the seventh consecutive year. The Top 20 list recognizes the top providers for sales training services and technologies, and Richardson is one of seven companies included in the list each year. Richardson develops customized sales training programs that change behaviors and provide measurable results. From assessing talent and developing sales teams through verifiable outcomes, coaching, and reinforcement, Richardson employs effective learning methodologies that draw on the best of interpersonal interactions to help build individual and organizational capabilities. Richardson has spent 30 years examining every type of sales conversation — deconstructing them, rebuilding them, and making them learnable and repeatable for each stage of the sales cycle which Richardson has covered in their eBook, The Sales Conversation Pendulum. Richardson has been recognized for providing outstanding service and a proven track record for delivering superior training and improving the impact of sales organizations.  Inclusion to this year’s Top 20 Sales Training Companies list was based on the following criteria: Industry recognition and impact on the sales training industry Innovation in the sales training market Company size and growth potential Breadth of service offering Strength of clients served Geographic reach "Being named to Training Industry’s list for the seventh consecutive year is a great accomplishment and something we are all very proud of", says Jim Brodo, SVP for Richardson. "This recognition validates our dedication to providing our clients with relevant sales training that will make an impact on their organizations." "The Sales Training segment showed a strong innovation push in 2015 with continued, above-average growth rates," said Ken Taylor, chief operating officer at Training Industry, Inc. "The companies selected to this year’s list are leading the deployment of some new strategies in mobile learning, micro-learning, and innovation in sustainability in support of their programs." "This year’s list demonstrates the continued strength and quality of offerings of the Sales Training segment," said Doug Harward, chief executive officer at Training Industry, Inc. "These organizations are leading the way in providing their clients with innovative products and services in their desired modalities." Earlier this month, Richardson was also named to TrainingIndustry.com’s Top 20 Leadership Training Companies list for the second consecutive year. To learn more about Richardson, please contact Jim Brodo at jim.brodo@richardson.com or visit www.richardson.com. About Richardson Richardson is a global sales performance company that helps leading organizations improve sales results. We do this in three ways. We analyze the structure and talent of your salesforce, we train and develop your sales team, and we continue that development through coaching and reinforcement. We equip your sales leaders and salesforce with the skills and strategies they need to win in today’s complex selling environment. What is unique about Richardson is how we create truly customized solutions that change behavior and provide measurable results. The post Richardson Named to TrainingIndustry.com’s Top 20 Sales Training Companies List for Seventh Consecutive Year appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

What’s your Questioning Strategy? Asking to be a strategic advisor to your client usually never happens. But, having the right questioning strategy can build the credibility required to become one. The questions that you ask and the way that you ask them can define how you operate and how you are perceived by clients. Do you ask the questions that get you paid? These questions are your bread and butter; they’re part of your comfort zone. These questions allow you to position your solution and the need for your product or service. These are what we call "current situation questions" — questions that probe how the client is currently operating, his/her level of satisfaction with the operations, and facts about how he/she does business. All good questions, but they’re the wrong places to start. The best first questions are strategic ones that explore the client’s main objectives. What is he/she trying to accomplish? What are his/her key priorities and objectives? Why did he/she decide to change from X strategy to Y? Why should we ask these questions first? Because we don’t want to focus on our agenda; we want to focus on the client’s. At this point, we want the client to talk about what is most important to him/her. We want the client to take the conversation — and us — where he/she wants it to go, not where we want it to go. Some people think that asking too many questions makes you look unprepared. Others think there are no stupid questions. The best strategy when talking to C-level executives is to leverage your preparation and ask questions that demonstrate an understanding of the client’s business. Don’t waste clients’ time with a generic, "What are your main objectives?" Instead, show that you’ve done your homework. You might say, "In speaking with Tom in Western Region sales, he mentioned the key areas of focus for the company are X, Y, and Z. I would like to get your take to find out how you feel these are working." Asking open-ended, strategic questions allows you to go deeper into the iceberg. We don’t want to just uncover the obvious, observable things (the tip of the iceberg) or what we know about similar companies. We want to see beneath the waterline, to uncover the bigger issues that we might not be aware of. The first questions should uncover short-term business objectives, strategic goals, and key needs. Then, switch the focus to the present. What is most important to the client NOW (the client’s current situation, his/her process, operations, etc.)? Is the client satisfied with the current situation? Is it going well? What changes would the client make? From there, move to future needs (long-term plans and goals), personal needs (what is at stake for the individual?), the client’s nonbusiness interests, preliminary thinking about possible solutions, and the client’s feelings about you as a sales professional and your company. Any implementation questions should come last (budget, decision making, and time frames). To avoid sounding like a prosecuting attorney, it’s important to make questioning a conversation and not an interrogation. It helps to remember these three basic skills: Prefacing to introduce the question with a rationale that makes you sound more credible and the client more comfortable answering the question Trading information based on your knowledge of the market, industry, or similar clients to add value to the discussion and encourage the client to share new information Acknowledging what the client is saying to show that you are listening The types of questions that you ask will determine whether you are perceived as a vendor or as a partner. It will become difficult to differentiate yourself from the competition, and you may end up selling a solution that isn’t a customized fit for the client. The more generic your questions, the more generic the sale. You will also lose the ability to use the client’s own words when positioning solutions or to uncover additional opportunities. Most importantly, you will have a harder time accessing and connecting to C-level executives and company decision makers. To make sure this doesn’t happen, prepare your questioning strategy and questions in advance. Let your questions show your preparation and understanding of the client’s needs, and leverage your industry knowledge. Most of all, make it conversational and focus on the client’s agenda, not yours. Learn More About Richardson’s Consultative Selling Solutions Want to learn more about how to build a world class questioning strategy? Click the image below or the following link to download a brochure on our award winning Consultative Selling sales training solutions! Or you can contact Jim Brodo, SVP of marketing directly at jim.brodo@richardson.com. The post What’s your Questioning Strategy? appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Sales 101: Five Techniques for Positioning a Price Increase Karl is a Sales Professional with McGinniss and Company[1], a leading supplier of raw materials to manufacturers. For 15 years, Karl has been using Sales 101 techniques to build strong relationships with clients, despite a volatile economy that has driven prices down and materials costs up. Fortunately, the economy is improving, and McGinniss is seeing the benefits through increases in sales as high as 10% in seven of the last eight quarters. As a result, McGinniss is now in a position to implement price increases for the first time in seven years. Karl doesn’t know what to do. Like many Sales Professionals in the volatile economic conditions of the 21st century, Karl has never had to communicate price increases to his clients. Lacking experience in positioning a price increase, he is afraid of weakening the strong relationships that he has developed, or worse, losing clients by delivering this difficult message. However, for Karl, as for many Sales Professionals, economic growth is making price increases inevitable. Fortunately, it is possible to maintain strong client relationships in this situation by following five techniques borrowed from Sales 101 for leading a consultative conversation about price increases: 1) Know the reason for the price increase. There are a number of reasons for increasing prices. For example: Your costs (materials, labor, facilities, etc.) have increased. The original pricing that you established with the client no longer reflects current conditions, and your margins are too low. The market has shifted upward since you last quoted a price for the client. Be honest with your client about your company’s reason(s) for the increase, which will help create transparency and build trust. 2) Anticipate client resistance. Think through the implications of the price increase for your client, and be prepared to acknowledge these implications. Anticipate in advance how the client will react to the increase so that you are best prepared to address his/her objections and concerns. 3) Neutrally position the price increase. As briefly as possible, lay out for the client why you are implementing a price increase, how much the increase will be, and when it takes effect. Do not belabor the point with excessive rationale. Remain neutral and confident. Avoid using phrases like, I know this increase is hard on you … or, I know this increase seems high … which could create a perception that you don’t support your company’s decision. 4) Remain silent after positioning the increase. Anything you say after that point will open up room for negotiation in the client’s mind. Do not ask a checking question. If the client raises objections or concerns, use the Objection Resolution Model to address them, but avoid creating the impression that the increase is negotiable. 5) Strengthen the relationship. End on a positive note. Thank the client for understanding and for his/her continued business. Express your enthusiasm for continuing to work together. What sales techniques have you used to position price increases? Share them with us in the comments below! Learn More About Richardson’s Consultative Selling Solutions Want to learn more about how to position price increases, yet maintain long-term relationships? Click the image below or the following link to download a brochure on our award winning Consultative Selling sales training solutions! Or you can contact Jim Brodo, SVP of marketing directly at jim.brodo@richardson.com.               [1] Company name changed to protect confidentiality The post Sales 101: Five Techniques for Positioning a Price Increase appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.