If I… Will you?

By Mark LaRosa on February 24th, 2009 in Sales Strategy
13 comments

Whenever someone asks me about a particular negotiation point or tactic, I always tell them to remember the following phrase and to use it in every negotiation:

“If I…. will you ….”

For example,

“If I drop the set-up fee, will you be able to sign this week?”
“If I can get my boss to agree to the price reduction, will you agree to extend your contract from 12 months to 18 months?”
“If I commit to adding this feature in a future release, will you allow us to use your logo on our website.”

Top 10 tips for getting past a gate-keeper

By Mark LaRosa on February 20th, 2009 in Sales Strategy
5 comments

Lauren Gilchrist of Urgent Careers, wrote a guest post on UrgentSpeed, Jeff Stewart’s blog, about a lively discussion that went on at last nite’s Sales 101 event about the Top 10 ways to get past a gate-keeper.

If you cold-call, this is a must read. There are a lot of really great tips in there. My favorite is #2, “Treat the assistant like a human-being.” In my own personal experience, I have gotten the furthest in sales by just doing the right thing, and treating people with respect.

Here are the 10 tips she lists. Click HERE to see the full description.

Sales 101 for Start-ups

By Mark LaRosa on February 20th, 2009 in Sales Strategy
4 comments

Jeff Stewart, the CEO of UrgentCareers, and I gave a seminar last nite in Manhattan on the topic of Sales 101: How to jump-start sales in your start-up. It was a very interactive discussion, and I hope that everyone attending benefitted from the presentation.

I think the most valuable point that was discussed was Jeff’s comment that since now technology has gotten so much cheaper to deploy, by significant orders of magnitude, your biggest expense is your sales team – and making mistakes here is your biggest drain on capital.

Many people asked for the slide deck so I’m attaching it below.

Where are the sales classes in business school?

By Mark LaRosa on February 16th, 2009 in Sales Strategy
3 comments

I didn’t go to business school. I decided to start my own company right after college – just jumping in and figuring it out as I went along. I’m not sure that I would recommend this model to most people. I think I was too naive to know the risks that were ahead of me – but I think it was the right move for me. What’s is interesting is that as I started and grew my company I didn’t struggle with the concepts of valuation, or financing, or competition, or management or marketing, or any of these topics. What was the hardest thing to learn to do?

Sales Lessons from my 2-year old: Persistance

By Mark LaRosa on January 30th, 2009 in Sales Strategy
9 comments

Think about a typical conversation with a two year old:

Tina: “Daddy, can I have some candy?”
Daddy: “not now”
Tina: “Daddy, can I have a cookie?”
Daddy: “Its two hours until dinner, not now”
Tina: “PLEASE!”
Daddy: “I said no”
Tina: “Can I have an apple?”
Daddy: “Oh, alright. Fine – have an apple.”

While some may read this conversation and determine that I am a pushover, I want you to read into the persistence of the two year old. Not once, did Tina think that she wouldn’t eventually get something to eat – she just needed to figure out the right words, the right win-win solution so that she could get what she wanted. And – she did!

Revealing Price Too Early In An Enterprise Sale

By Mark LaRosa on January 25th, 2009 in Sales Strategy
1 comment

Recently, I negotiated and closed an account on behalf of one of my clients.  The deal had the potential to be very large, yet the ultimate deal came through at a significantly lower cost than I originally proposed.

Strive to pay higher taxes in 2009

By Mark LaRosa on January 6th, 2009 in Sales Strategy
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With all this talk about tax breaks and tax credits going on, I want it on record that I want to pay MORE taxes in 2009 than I did in 2008.

I don’t want to pay more taxes because I’m super patriotic (although I am).  I’m want to do it for one reason… because I want to make a sick amount of money.  One of my first posts at QuotaCrush was on this topic:  Why I’m happy about my Tax Bill I’m not going to comment on relative tax rates or what constitutes rich or not.  I’m not commenting on what should get a tax credit or not.  What I’m saying is that as a salesperson, if you are paying a high tax bill, it is probably because you sold a lot of stuff and got rewarded for it.