I like pithy observations about sales and sales culture. I recently interviewed author/sales guru Donal Daly, CEO of the TAS group, who hails from County Cork, home of the fabled Blarney stone. Perhaps as a consequence, Donal definitely has the proverbial “gift of gab.” Here, in honor of the holiday, are a selection of his off-the-cuff maxims about selling and sales process:
Donal Daly’s Pearls of Sales Wisdom (best imagined with an Irish accent):
- Unless sales training reduces sales costs, it’s probably a waste of time.
- It’s impossible to have not enough leads AND not enough sales reps.
- Sales pays for the company. Employees who don’t “get” that are part of the problem.
- If you lose a sale, you either shouldn’t have been selling there or you’ve been outsold.
- A sales effort is always either going forward or backward; it never stays still.
- It takes discipline and courage to ask the hard questions that could disqualify a prospect.
- If you take care of the downside, the upside will take care of itself.
- Early failure is much better than late failure…. it costs less.
- The best solution is a combination of your product, your services and you as a salesperson.
- Mediocre products with great sales teams always beat great products with mediocre sales teams.
READERS: Got any pearls of your own you want to share?
