Uploaded: Thursday, October 28, 2010

Rationalizations salespeople make to not follow up with prospective customers, from The Secrets of Power Selling: 101 Tips to Help You Improve Your Sales Results, by sales consultant Kelley Robertson.

Kelley Robertson can't believe how few salespeople follow up after they've made initial contact with a prospect or a customer. The president of Burlington, Ont.-based Robertson Training Group says it's such a neglected act that you can actually differentiate yourself from the competition by making the effort. "Don't take it for granted that they'll call you," he says in his 2007 book The Secrets of Power Selling.

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Uploaded: Thursday, October 28, 2010

By Kara Aaserud

The world's largest customer is the U.S. government - and it's willing to buy from Canadian entrepreneurs. Here's how to get your piece of the procurement pie.

After hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, the U.S. government faced an onslaught of bad press for its delayed response. For Chungsen Leung, president of Toronto-based Universal Building Solutions, that criticism represented opportunity. Sensing he could help the U.S. feds with a solution to their PR nightmare, he immediately went to work creating a new product: an easy-to-assemble house that can be delivered and built affordably. It wasn't too long before he was granted a US$15-million contract for the delivery of 350 units.

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Uploaded: Thursday, October 28, 2010

It sounds hopeless: getting the upper hand when you're negotiating with a client whose revenue is more than 10,000 times as big as yours. Yet that's exactly what Spitz International Inc., a Medicine Hat, Alta.- based processor of flavoured sunflower seeds, pulled off in its dealings with Wal-Mart.

In his new book Negotiating With Giants: Get What You Want Against the Odds, negotiation specialist Peter Johnston explains how Spitz managed to come out on top and the lessons this holds for other SMEs bargaining with giant clients. Spitz's problem was that its sales head had jumped at a deal to get its products listed at Wal-Mart, but at a deeply discounted price. A year and a half later, the deal was generating sales at an annual rate of $1 million. But Spitz's president Tom Droog discovered that the world's biggest company was paying his firm so little on each package sold that Spitz was barely making any money on the arrangement. Sales through Wal-Mart represented 5% of Spitz's revenue, and rising fast, but far less of its profits. So Droog set out to get Wal-Mart to up the price it paid Spitz by 15%.

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Uploaded: Thursday, October 28, 2010

By Andrew Joseph, Features Editor

Ontario folding-carton specialist leverages flexibility and fast turnaround to put itself on fast-growth track in food-and-beverage business.

For many folding-carton manufacturers, the notion that bigger is always better has long been the accepted dogma of what it takes to survive in the notoriously tight-margin business.

These days, however, there are plenty of examples of emerging small- and medium-sized players who thrive not by processing huge job runs, but by taking on short- and mid-sized jobs requiring impeccable product quality, flexible production capabilities, and swift turnaround.

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Uploaded: Thursday, October 28, 2010

By Jim McElgunn

Address the unarticulated needs of everyday clients, and your business will boom.

You can't define your competitive advantage until you figure out the role your firm plays in your customers' lives from their point of view, not yours. That can be tough if you're meeting an emotional need even they don't realize they have.

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Uploaded: Thursday, October 28, 2010

If only William Shakespeare had been a business coach.

Although the Bard likely didn't have an entrepreneurial audience in mind when he famously declared that "All the world's a stage" in his classic comedy As You Like It, it's a point that captains of industry have understood since the earliest days of commerce: business presentations are just another form of performance, and strong presentation skills are not only an asset, they're essential to doing business. In his book Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story, Jerry Weissman outlines these tips to help entrepreneurs prepare and perform show-stopping presentations that speak effectively to their target audience:

Determine your objective: One of the major problems with so many business presentations, says Weissman, is that they lack a clear focal point. All too often, entrepreneurs make a sales or investment pitch without a clear understanding of how to present their ultimate objective to an audience. Understand what you're trying to achieve with the presentation and remember that the presentation should make your audience understand, believe in, and act upon the message you want to deliver.

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Uploaded: Thursday, October 28, 2010

By Jim McElgunn

Sell more! Let our 2008 sales guide show you how to find great salespeople, generate better leads and close more profitable business deals.

IntroductIon
No matter what you're selling to today's jaded and price-obsessed customers, our 2008 Sales Handbook will give you tested tactics and strategies for finding more prospects and closing more deals.

Sales Survey
The results of our exclusive survey will help you benchmark your business, spot your weaknesses and adopt today's most effective sales strategies.

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