Category Archives for "heart-centered"

Thanksgiving – heart-centered sales and marketing thrives on a spirit of gratitude

By John Aberle | Gratitude , heart-centered , Holidays , Sales and Marketing , Soft Sell

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s filled with abundance including feelings of love and family plus food including my favorite turkey and Dorothy’s favorite, pumpkin pie which she bakes. There are family recipes we enjoy year to year, like the cranberry relish Mother always made with fresh cranberries. It’s thrilling to see the next generation active in helping prepare the family meal for 20 to 21 members of our extended family.

A day to appreciate the good things in life

Most of all, I love that Thanksgiving is a day of gratitude for all of the blessings of the prior year, even those that don’t look initially like blessing. Additionally, it’s free of the anxiety of gifts, both giving and receiving.

Over 20 years ago a friend taught me the value of keeping a gratitude journal. In sales and marketing we often talk about how important attitude is to a person’s success. Customers and clients want someone who’s upbeat, positive, who sees the opportunity to help them improve their situation.

Wish I’d learned earlier the value of focusing on gratitude

I know that as well as I have done in sales, I could have succeeded to an even higher level had I recognized that commiserating with people about how bad things are or how tough we have it puts them into a defensive, protect what I already have mindset while it simultaneously dropped me out of a position of positive expectancy. It’s tough to help customers buy when we are both in a negative frame of mind. Filing your heart with gratitude for the people, experiences and opportunities in your life will boost your desire to use heart-centered, soft sell sales and marketing to grow your business relationships too.  Continue reading

Customer Service Metrics Can Do More Harm than Good

By John Aberle | customer service , heart-centered , Sales and Marketing , Soft Sell

Cable Internet Installation Leads to Distrust of Customer Service Metrics

After our recent switch from DSL to cable service for Internet, I feel a kinship with Charles H. Green’s comments in “Killing Trust with Measurements and Rewards,” in Trust-Based Selling. Green describes how the pharmaceutical industry has been increasing sales representatives while their effectiveness keeps dropping.

Among the problems they have is that as their sales force gets younger and younger, the expertise of their representatives declines. Doctors are seeing these representatives as “pill pushers” rather than as knowledgeable advisors and consultants. Why should they bother wasting precious time they could spend with patients to see salespeople who only care about their own metrics, i.e. how many scripts are written for their products. This is definitely a hard sell approach to sales.

Soft Sell Approach Requires Concern on Getting Right Solution for Client

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Doing What’s Right in Sales Situations

By John Aberle | Ethics , heart-centered , Sales and Marketing , Soft Sell

Most Ethical Situations in Sales Skirt the Law

This weekend a friend described an ethical situation at work. In Mike’s (not his real name) case, his employer is actually breaking the law. It requires courage to act in such an environment. Unfortunately, most ethical situations, in my experience, manage to skirt the law thereby making the judgment call even harder. This is particularly true in sales and marketing where people who are driven solely by the numbers, i.e. money, care only about getting the contract signed. The methods used to get the signature are unimportant to these types of business people.

Once Signed a Contract Is a Legal Document

I’ve always considered it ironic that people who will lie to get a contract signed, will then use the law to enforce that contract gotten by dishonesty. Oops, to be politically correct I probably wasn’t supposed to say anyone would lie. They’re only people who “stretch the truth.” Of course, if I get burned by their fraud, I’m going to be looking for justice regardless of how they spin what they did.

Avoid the Head-Trip — Stick with the Heart-Centered Golden Rule

Actually, salespeople who want to use heart-centered, soft sell sales techniques will be coming from Continue reading

Selling for the Love of It

By John Aberle | heart-centered , Sales and Marketing

Work with Passion

There’s more to life than money alone. I know that sounds shocking from someone who trains people to sell and who considers himself a businessman. Nevertheless, for most of us, it’s true. And from my experience working with small business owners, I find that most of them have a passion for what they do. Naturally, we all want to make lots of money and be able to have the freedom and possessions it brings.

I Sell for the Love of It — When …

Still, as I was watching an Air Force commercial on TV recently, I thought about the hundreds of thousands of people serving in the U.S. Military Services – these are people who are dedicated to serving their country. Money is not their primary motivator either.

In both my experience and reading, I find that most of us work to Continue reading