http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers Walter Rogers Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:00:20 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The sales field is full of people who consider themselves to be experts. They have many years of experience and they have amassed a great amount of product knowledge. In spite of that, many of them consistently underperform, and in many cases this problem is caused by the fact that ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=103 Even in the best of times, sales is a challenging way to earn a living. When economic conditions are uncertain and business cycles slow down, the pressure on sales professionals to perform is very intense. Competition becomes ferocious and margins shrink. Some sales professionals, looking for an edge to help ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=101 According to legendary New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, “90% of baseball is mental. The other half is physical.”  Clearly, Yogi – despite his fractured math - could have also been a legendary sales professional if he had wanted to be, because that is exactly the same formula that highly ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=99 Typical sales pros are excited (and a little relieved) whenever they close a deal. Highly successful sales professionals are usually just as glad, but they understand something that a lot of less successful sales pros don’t realize: closing the deal is simply one step along the road to even greater ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=96 Some sales professionals become a little uneasy when it comes to measuring performance. They are uncomfortable with pipeline reviews and evaluation sessions (unless they have had a good month and the forecast is positive). When the numbers are low, their anxiety usually begins to climb. Why? Because poor performance feels ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=94 In a typical sales process, the emphasis is generally on identifying the decision maker and doing whatever you can to get in front of them with your offer. Certainly, it is true that it is hard to close a deal without the support of the decision maker. However, in most ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=90 “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black.”   This famous quote by Henry Ford reveals his strategy for mass producing the Model T automobile and launching the great industrial juggernaut of the early 20th century. For almost 100 years, this ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=87 Because of the relentless pressure to drive revenue and close business, all sales professionals are very familiar with the temptation to discount or give ground on other terms and conditions in order to win the business. With the customer right there dangling the deal carrot, and the end of the ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=84 Experienced sales professionals already know that asking questions is the best way to uncover customer needs. However, you can be good at asking questions and still never be highly successful, and here is why: A lot of sales professionals only ask questions so they can steer the customer to the ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=82 When focusing on the 11 habits of highly successful sales professionals, the most important habit to establish is also the hardest one to master, because it requires a complete, profound shift in attitude. Most sales professionals approach customers looking for opportunities to sell something; this is the main challenge most ... http://houstonbusinessdaily.com/advisor/Walter_Rogers/?p=80