Craig's Blog

Get out and sell.

I haven't written for ages simply because I have been out selling like mad. All I have been hearing for ages is credit crunch this or economic downturn that and all I have seen is opportunities.

Companies are reviewing every area of their supplier base. Make sure you are getting out in front of these companies and that you are the first name on their lips when they want to change.

Happy Selling

Craig Fisher - The Sales Expert

Plan Now Smile Later!

Over the summer many businesses will be experiencing their annual quiet period. This is the time where many projects will be close to sign off and customers will be relaxing their demand for your product or services.

Many would argue that with the demands placed on you and your staff there is never a good time to sit down and work out a new business plan. Why not now? Take some time to work on your business rather than simply in it.

This is the perfect time to review your conduct and more importantly your results. Where did you go wrong? Where did you succeed? Start implementing the important changes that will make sure you hit the ground running come September.

Remember to communicate your plans for the coming 12 months with all your staff, not just the major decision makers. Recognise the importance of all your staff in terms of their contribution to your bottom line. They will have to be briefed on any new targets or areas of concern to be addressed.

Happy Selling

Craig Fisher - The Sales Expert

Death By PowerPoint

PowerPoint is undoubtedly a great format to present a subject. However its misuse can be common as well as fatal. A good PowerPoint presentation will never send your audience to sleep, quite the opposite. It is there to guide as well as motivate audience participation.

A PowerPoint presentation should be less about providing you with a script to work from and more about providing pointers on where to take the content. Keep it concise, you want your audience to pay attention to you and not the projector screen or printout. Leaving all the information in the audiences view is a big mistake. Minds start to wonder and all of a sudden you’ve lost their attention.

For my recent seminar I created a PowerPoint presentation that indicated topics of discussion, as well as a few choice expansion prompts. The aim was to provide the content in a more interactive manner Your job is to expand on what is noted and leave listeners in no doubt about the level of your expertise.

Happy selling

Craig Fisher - The Sales Expert

Economic Downturn, Recession, these are just some of the terms currently being used to characterise the current strain on the UK economy. It’s certainly played its part as an important topic in the recent Mayoral campaign but this is obviously also a concern faced by many SMEs.

I’ve always believed that one of the keys to success in business is the ability to turn economic adversity into opportunity. Thus it becomes even more important to focus on improving your new business drive.

There are a wealth of opportunities out there for the non sales focused business; while your competitors panic you should look to prosper!

I am very happy that thesalesexpert.co.uk has been launched in recent weeks. Although it should not be the only reason, the current economic downturn should get you thinking…

…”How can we improve our sales figures in order to avoid being seriously effected by the credit crunch?”

Don’t take resources away from your new business acquisition, sell your way out!

Happy selling.

Craig Fisher - The Sales Expert

The last few weeks have been a real eye opener for me. Having come up with the idea to launch this site I then had to sit down with Michael, the www.thesalesexpert.co.uk researcher and copywriter, and tell him everything I knew about sales!

The more we sat down and researched the more Michael and I realised that this site is essential for people that need to sell for a living.

I am lucky. I run a sales company and sales IS what I do, so when I go out on new business appointments I always expect to close them (and normally do!) However in an accountancy firm for example, the people going out trying to win new business are not sales people, they are Accountants and therefore they may need help in sales tips and techniques.

I will update the blog as often as I can with the aim of sharing interesting experiences that I face on a day to day basis in the World of selling!

Happy selling.

Craig Fisher - The Sales Expert