August 6, 2010
Over the past year I've taken the time to write down my thoughts about a number things related to sales, working with partners, and customer service. Sitting down once a month to collect my thoughts and think of a meaningful sales topic to write about has been a useful exercise. I wrote mostly as a reminder to myself on insights and principles I believe to be true about selling. Hopefully for any readers that happen upon this site, it has been helpful to you as well.
After meeting my personal goal to write a blog for at least a year as a way of building up my personal brand, I am finding family and job commitments requiring me to suspend this effort for now. My hope is that there is enough ideas and thoughts here to simulate your thinking and generate some interesting discussions.
Occasionally, as time permits or as a new sales insight come up, you may see a new post. Until then, best wishes and good selling!
Mark
Posted by Mark Ouyang. Posted In :
Selling
July 4, 2010
...And the Hard way is the Easy way. That is a saying I picked up from a Sandler Sales trainer who also happens to be an actual Guru. The phrase was his way of reminding sales people that in every initial sales call, there comes a moment of truth where the sales person decides if he or she is going to establish themselves as an equal participant in the sales process.
By equal participant, I mean the sales person establishing the right to ask and expect answers from the prospect, the way the ...
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Posted by Mark Ouyang. Posted In :
Selling
June 6, 2010
I’ve been keeping an old note, which has scribbled on it, a percentage breakdown of how one customer evaluates vendor’s business proposals. The customer was a guest CIO speaker at one of the annual sales training kick-off meetings I managed. Because he was speaking on another topic, he mentioned his criteria quite casually and almost as a side note. One could have easily missed it if they weren’t paying attention. Luckily, I heard it and was able to ask him afterwards to explain in ...
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Posted by Mark Ouyang. Posted In :
Selling
May 5, 2010
In a previous post, I
suggested that assessing the prospect's buying behavior is a better, more
accurate way to manage and forecast a partner's sales pipeline. It avoids the language and interpretation
problems that arise when different sales methodologies are used. By
establishing a neutral, "common ground" framework focused on customer
buying behaviors and not on specific actions t... Continue reading...
Posted by Mark Ouyang. Posted In :
Selling
April 7, 2010
As a person who enjoys solving problems, it probably isn’t a surprise that I enjoy the murder mystery as a movie genre. It is always fun to try and figure out who did it as the story unfolds and clues are given. However, after recently watching A&E’s Nero Wolfe mystery series on DVDs, I felt somewhat disappointed and unsatisfied.
Though visually stunning and reproduced for the time period, I found myself playing scenes over and over again to pick up on the dialog between the main charact...
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Posted by Mark Ouyang. Posted In :
Selling
