Comments on: Sales Psychology: Never Appear Hungry

By: bradgosse

bradgosse — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:23:55 +0000

I agree, I tell salespeople to stop thinking of themselves as selling and start thinking they are helping. A better title for a good salesperson is Buyers Assistant. All you are there to do is help them make a decision yes or no. Either way you have done your job. Your product or service is never for everyone. Helping the customer come to that conclusion faster is your job.

By: bradgosse

bradgosse — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:22:26 +0000

Agreed. We are already investigating the iBook platform to see if we can publish content with it. This could be a huge opportunity for e-book publishers with good content.

By: seanshap

seanshap — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:34:43 +0000

So much opportunity with the iPad launch.

By: ShaneRQR

ShaneRQR — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:09:03 +0000

I've had the same thoughts quite often when reading books and material about marketing. There's definitely a book in there.

By: bradgosse

bradgosse — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:27:40 +0000

I'm watching the ipad launch now.

Pretty slick stuff. FYI you can buy macs through CDW as a corporate user and save a whopping 1-2% lol. That's what we do.

By: seanshap

seanshap — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:33:09 +0000

Exactly. I remember one of the popular scripts 7 years ago. The owner refused to drop his price. He told me it was $600 for everyone no matter how big or small. Whenever I needed another version of his script I never hesitated to buy it. I knew the price and knew it was the same for everyone. I feel the same about apple. Apple generally charges the same price across the board. The only thing I ever worry about with Apple is a new product coming out (on that note I'm looking forward to seeing if the tablet is announced today).

I'd much prefer hosts having set prices based on volume and them adjusting those prices as their costs go down. Our main host now is phenomenal. Their pricing and support are second to none. I truly feel like we are business partners and I think that is very important. Thanks to their support and competitive pricing we've been able to push our bandwidth to over 10,000 mb/s.

By: Caroline Irwin

Caroline Irwin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:15:57 +0000

Less is often more. Not being the dog is imperative ie; bowling them over with information when they come in the door or meet with you to discuss. Asking great questions and listening to the answer on all levels is also key. Getting to a person's point of tension reaches a client on an emotional level rather than on a facts and figures level.

By: bradgosse

bradgosse — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:07:43 +0000

It's funny, when you move a lot of traffic, you purchase by the megabit. Although there are different tiers of hosts to work with, within each tier there is some serious price competition.

Even hosting to some degree comes down to a level of confidence. I know the company I host with makes me feel warm and fuzzy. That's important when your business relies on uptime. I am willing to pay a little extra per megabit or even an added service fee to give me that feeling.

I also feel as if I have lost a little whenever I'm able to get someone's price down. It's funny, we almost feel better about buying products when prices are concrete than we do when we get a discount.

By: bradgosse

bradgosse — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:02:47 +0000

Shane

I agree that you need to be confident in what you are selling. In most cases you are selling yourself or your abilities, so you already know what you are worth. Never accept less.

The more I think about it, the more parallels I find between business and dating. I think there's a book there somewhere.

By: seanshap

seanshap — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:35:10 +0000

Good tips Brad.

I'm usually the buyer of services or products in business. I agree with having a price and sticking to it. I'm always out to grind someone down as low as I possibly can (must be the dutch in me). If someone starts dropping their price I always am left wondering if I could have got them lower. If you have a price and it's the same price across the board there is great value in knowing that I'm being charged fairly and I won't hear from someone else that I got ripped off.

I experienced this first hand with hosting companies in the past few years. Prices have gone from >$30 per mb/s down to <$5 per mb/s. A few years ago, during a re-negotiation of our bw prices, we got our hosting company to drop their price substantially. We were assured this is as low as they go and they can't do better. They said all the right things to make me feel like I just got a steal. A week later I was at a trade show talking with a friend of mine who hosts at the same company. I found out he was pushing less bw and paying less than I was. My confidence in that company was shattered and I eventually left them.