@Linda Barbara Fleishman I am in a transactional business rather than a consultative or relational business in the sense that I am not a coach or a consultant that isn't to say certain aspects of the role do lend themselves to the consultative or relational side. As far as handling objections and closing things out I am mainly looking at the technical side of the business so objects often come in the form of wanting to use the product in a situation or environment that it wasn't designed for. The biggest battle is trying to get a real handle on the actual numbers that their product will sell in a year and the life expectancy of the product to be able to analyse whether the customisation we would need to do is viable to be done and recoup the costs via the sales numbers or whether we would need to charge an NRE to cover the work that needs to be done to meet the spec required. As we know marketing depts are not always that good at knowing their markets because often they want to produce something but what they are looking at is not always what the market wants or needs. I have had projects where they have said a thousand pcs a year and it went crazy and it was closer to a million and another where they were estimating 250K and they were lucky to sell 250pcs. To me it is closed out when the part is listed on the BOM as the companies I represent use Franchised Distributors to Stock and Sell the product and at the slightest hint of an objection they are looking to reduce the price. I have no control or authority over the sales people but I have been experimenting with an idea I gleaned off of Peter, which is to start my meetings by asking what would make the meeting a total success for them, which has made me having to listen more and so far has produced some strange results with the way the meetings have gone. Some of this is down to me not writing or phrasing my questions as objectively or as sharply and concisely as maybe they should. More practise needed in crafting my questions.

@Linda Barbara Fleishman So far a little confusion because they haven't been asked that sort of question at the start of a meeting and therefore they haven't been prepared to go down that route so it has them digging to answer but sensitive questioning and allowing them to talk about what is concerning them rather than pigeoning then in to talking about my products specifically has been illuminating and allowed me to find out far more about them and their projects than I perhaps would have done otherwise. I think also it allows them to realise that I am not going to be pushing to sell them something they don't need or want; it also shows up that if i go directly into my "pitch" we miss things because there are so many different labels and ways to categorise many of the products I sell that what I am describing doesn't relate to them but if I let the conversation coalesce around what problems they are experiencing we end up identify what is of interest to me but they are looking and and using different terminology, so in other selling situations we miss because of a language discrepancy. Early days but so far exhilarating and informative but as I said in my last post needs practise and being more thoughtful in my questioning and being adaptive to throw away my ideas/agenda and run with theirs!

The 1st Session was superb, detail enhanced what I knew and took it to another level. Can't wait for the 2nd and 3rd sessions. Now reviewing and trying to put a structure in place to follow through on all the good ideas. 10 out of 10

All have been relevant a periods in the past but recently I moved to D) it is not easy to answer them with honesty having I either by passed them in the past or constructed frameworks which have had biases attached. The process is tortuous and I have had to redraft several attempts as self doubt and imposter syndrome language has found its way in. I am still looking for my voice "Uncle Peter"

@Peter Thomson @Rachel Groves over a period of time all of the above would of interest with your inimitable take on them. Particularly "Communicating my value more clearly", "Using AI in a practical way for my business" - although I think a lot of this will come out in the 3 week course you and Darryl will be presenting shortly and aligned with this would be "Creating better messages, emails and content" again some or all of this will be part of the 3 week course mentioned in yesterday's webinar and which I have signed up for, so very much looking forward to attending that - all 3 dates are red circled in my calendar...

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