Tip 29 Use the 1/10th of 1 Percent Sales Price Rule or Create Your Own
Let's say you're selling a survey research service costing $10,000. Does the dollar amount represent a small or large investment for your prospects? One way to answer the question is to use the 1/10th of 1 percent rule. I created this metric for many of the solutions I represented over the years and it was both simple and helpful. If your company is trying to sell a $10,000 solution to a prospect which has $1 million in annual revenues, your solution would cost them 1 percent of their revenues. That's a fairly significant number to them, one which is likely to require scrutiny, perhaps requiring the CEO to sign off on the purchase. However, if you're selling the same solution to a $25 million company, the purchase is well under 1/10th of 1 percent and would likely be under the radar — often requiring departmental approval and fitting within existing budget amounts. Further, if the purchase is well under 1/10th of 1 percent the prospect might be able to leverage operational budget money, often a faster and easier path than a capital purchase. The same rule holds true for B2C sales, find a working ratio between the investment for your solution and the target household income. Read more...

Tip 36 Get Past Legal Hurdles
During the closing phase, you may encounter challenges with your prospect's lawyer or legal department. In some cases, if you have your own legal department, the challenge might actually be your own legal requirements. But for now, let's focus on a few important qualifying questions for the legal department. Do they have a lawyer or legal department that must review your contract? Do they insist on using their own contract? How long does it take to review a typical purchase? Can you work with them directly or does your sponsor act as the liaison? Do they insist on certain standard clauses, which must be included in every contract, and if so, can your sponsor provide those for you to review? Is your solution considered a work for hire, do they require ownership of IP, are there onerous damages clauses? Will they consider a mandatory arbitration clause which might be helpful to your boutique operation? We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves in the sales process, but it's helpful to identify potential issues early and to have a game plan to solve them in the present and close phases. Though many of these questions pertain to B2B sales, some are also relevant for B2C sales. If you can simplify your own contract, it can help reduce the legal hurdles immensely. Consider creating an order form with the key legal clauses you require on the back of the form or on page two and include an arbitration clause. Simpler is usually better. If you wind up in a legal battle before or after the sale, it's usually a losing proposition for everyone.

My days began abruptly at 5:45am with a loud blast of music from the clock radio on the dresser. I would shower, shave, and put on a suit, shirt and requisite tie. If there was time, I'd eat a bowl of cereal, pour some coffee in my travel mug and head out the door at 6:45am. If I was lucky, 45 minutes later I would pull into the parking lot at 7:30am. Assuming I had the customary and usual reports, meetings, conference calls and email threads, I would get back in my car around 6:30pm, and arrive home around 7:15pm. I would repeat this routine five days a week, except on travel days when I'd get up at 4:30am to make a 7am flight. These were extended hour days which often exceeded 16 hours before settling down at my non-descript business hotel. Now let's fast forward to a more recent work day. Read more...

My morning began in a plush condo with commanding views of the Gulf of Mexico, 21 floors above the cascading pools of the Portofino Resort. Before I sauntered down to the beach, I made a quick call to one of my clients, finalizing a minor item on a major contract. I zipped off an email to their prospective client, a multibillion corporation, asking if they would move forward with the $100,000 agreement with this minor change. Now that I've gone virtual, it's a little bit challenging to determine when I'm working or when I'm on vacation, in either case, I never put in the long hours many of us have endured in the traditional grind. When on vacation I might work an hour a day, and when I'm not on vacation, I work about six hours a day albeit in an extremely casual, flexible and comfortable environment. You can accomplish more in six hour virtual day than you can in a traditional ten hour business day. As a result of this productivity leap, my virtual company has yielded millions of dollars in sales on behalf of my clients and over a million dollars in personal income to me in just the last few years. I now have plenty of time for family, friends and personal pursuits like community activism, travel, reading, running, weight lifting, hiking, golfing, bowling and scuba diving, and on this day in September, a sunny day at a beautiful beach.