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	<title>Revenue-IQ</title>
	<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog</link>
	<description>Sales Articles for Service Contractors</description>
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		<title>Teach Your Children&#8230;Business Skills</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Look back on your sales career. Think about those critical business skills that really matter. Not how to read a P&#38;L or sandbag a budget. But the real-life interpersonal skills that helped you succeed with customers. Things like: Introducing yourself to customers at a trade association lunch Proper etiquette at a dinner meeting with customers [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/08/27/teach-your-children-business-skills/</link>
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		<title>Incumbent-itis</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You may already have it &#8211; that is if you&#8217;re a contract service supplier. From the first day you started service you&#8217;re a potential victim of incumbent-itis. As you work diligently towards &#8220;wowing&#8221; your new client, you&#8217;re also on the road towards the first rebid. And there will be a rebid. There always is. In [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/08/19/incumbent-itis/</link>
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		<title>4 &#8220;BE&#8221;s for Selling in the Great Recession</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Economic news these days is a jumble of cries about double dip recession and the U.S. succumbing to a Japanese-style &#8220;lost decade&#8221; with multiple recessions. From the media&#8217;s perspective the economy is a very frightening animal. Fear-inducing articles sell ad space. So their perspective is often short-term, the immediate take on last month, quarter, or [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/08/05/selling-in-the-great-recession/</link>
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		<title>Sales Training 101: POV</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If there&#8217;s one must-have, die-without sales training, it&#8217;s understanding Points of View (POV)&#8230;that are not one&#8217;s own. POV is the genesis of customers buying, contracting, managing, and changing suppliers. Of contractors selling, serving, retaining, and profiting from customers. Can&#8217;t understand a customers&#8217; POV? No business. Period. End of story. Understand how customers view the world, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/07/24/sales-training-101-pov/</link>
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		<title>6 Golden Keys to C-Speak</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;You talkin&#8217; to me? You talkin&#8217; to me? You talkin&#8217; to me?&#8221; (Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver, 1976) Many sales people feel calling on prospects&#8217; C-suite is like confronting Travis on a bad day. It makes them anxious, sweaty. They&#8217;d rather talk to anyone other than the CEO. Then there&#8217;s the fearless but clueless salesperson. The [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/07/13/6-golden-keys-to-c-speak/</link>
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		<title>Competing with Bigs, Mom-n-Pops &amp; In-Betweens</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Facility service contracts don&#8217;t exist in a vacuum. There&#8217;s always competition. Those you know about, and those that come out of the woods at the 11th hour. Isn&#8217;t it tempting to tell customers what you really think about your competition? While giving vent to your innermost feelings may be therapeutic for the moment, successful business [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/06/28/competition/</link>
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		<title>Who Cares What Sellers Want?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Obviously we do if we&#8217;re selling or managing sales. But buyers (aka prospects or customers) have no reason to care. They receive no benefit by helping sales people. As dumb and basic as this sounds, most sales people still work as if this wishful thinking were true. They expect buyers to do the sellers&#8217; work, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/06/17/who-cares-what-sellers-want/</link>
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		<title>Millions Lost: Look at the Dark Side</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Service sales are odd, facility service sales even more so. Sales investments are often made on the beginning stages of the sales cycle, i.e. awareness, lead generation, relationships, etc. Most contractors budget for entertainment, tradeshows, marketing collateral, some even budget for sales training. All worthy and necessary, but&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230; New business only starts with a sales [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/06/09/millions-lost-look-at-the-dark-side/</link>
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		<title>Using Personas for Prospect Profiles</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Better than shooting in the dark, prospect profiles (aka targets or ideal customers) make sales and marketing more successful. They screen out the undesirable and demote the mediocre, making efforts more effective, optimizing investments and producing more desired results (leads, meetings, bids, sales, etc.). Traditional profiles are good for bucketing prospects&#8217; demographic criteria, such as: [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/06/03/using-personas-for-prospect-profiles/</link>
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		<title>The Point of Perfect Prospects</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Some suspects become prospects -and- some prospects become customers. But attaining customerhood isn&#8217;t the end. Not all customers are created equal. Some are toxic, some dribble in revenue or profit, and some are perfect (while &#8220;perfect&#8221; is impossible, think of it as &#8220;the closest thing to perfect&#8221;). The point of perfect prospects is&#8230; &#8230;that converting [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.serviceperformance.com/blog/2010/05/28/the-point-of-perfect-prospects/</link>
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