If you're in sales, you can identify with this situation - about two weeks after starting a new job, you begin to doubt your decision. You detect a widening gap between what you were told to expect and what actually occurs. After only a month on the job, you conclude, 'I think I made a mistake.' You're probably right, because salespersons seem to be more prone to selecting the wrong job. Too often, their profession's tendency to stress the positive and minimize negative factors extend into their approach in choosing a job.

Knowing what customers expect may be the most important key to successful selling. While every customer is interested in getting an appropriate price, many salespeople seem to think that price is the primary issue. As a result, they lead with price and seem to base most of their sales presentation on cost issues.

Do customers really want more personal service? The answer may seem obvious, but is it? It's true that there are plenty of complaints-many of them justified-about shopping in stores where sales and service personnel are in short supply and the workers lack training, courtesy, and a desire to be helpful. But is all this a plea for bringing back old-fashioned personal service? It may seem so, but what's actually happening is quite different and far more significant.

Customer service begins with thinking like customers.
A good place to start is with language. Thought and language mirror each other, and when the right words are used, the organization begins to behave as if they were true. Use the wrong words and the opposite happens.

There may come a time when your agency's communications needs exceed the capabilities of in-house personnel. You want to concentrate on producing new business, developing products, and servicing clients. Who has the time and expertise to create newspaper or radio advertising-or perform the myriad public relations functions necessary to keep your agency in the public eye?

Every company faces crises that have the potential for doing serious damage to its reputation, image, and/or financial stability. Events that might’ve been minor or even unnoticed a few years ago could now wind up on the evening news or on page one of the newspaper. While some incidents are insignificant, others can be devastating. Yet when they occur it’s often difficult, if not impossible, to know whether the problem will evaporate or escalate, blow over or boomerang.

No matter what their size, many businesses use most of their available energy just keeping things running on a day-to-day basis.
Unfortunately, there seldom seems to be much time for those tasks that can have a profound effect on a company's future, such as communicating the company's message and projecting its image.

According to popular mythology, most Americans would rather die than give a speech. Whatever the actual statistics, the idea of standing in front of an audience is avoided at all cost.
Since the fear of speaking in public is so deep, most of us should be understanding of those who put themselves to the test and make presentations. Actually, just the opposite prevails: While we'll do just about anything to avoid a podium, we're more than willing to criticize those who don't.

Times have certainly changed. It wasn’t so long ago that you could open your doors and find a steady stream of customers ready to buy whatever you offered them. If they liked your company, they were loyal 'customers for life.'

To succeed in today’s selling environment, you’ll need to think out of the box.
There’s one revolution no one wants to think about, let alone discuss. It’s what’s happening to selling. Although the Internet has a profound effect on sales, it isn’t the only challenge facing salespeople. In fact, the Internet might only be the tip of the iceberg.