Rian Lanigan would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond? Rian Lanigan Marketing | Event Management | Social Media Confirm you know Rian You received an invitation to connect. LinkedIn will use your email address to make suggestions to our members in features like People You May Know. Unsubscribe If you need assistance or have questions, please contact LinkedIn Customer Service. © 2014, LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct. Mountain View, CA 94043, USA Continue reading

Rian Lanigan would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond? Rian Lanigan Marketing | Event Management | Social Media Confirm you know Rian You received an invitation to connect. LinkedIn will use your email address to make suggestions to our members in features like People You May Know. Unsubscribe If you need assistance or have questions, please contact LinkedIn Customer Service. © 2014, LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct. Mountain View, CA 94043, USA Continue reading

Rian Lanigan would like to stay in touch on LinkedIn. I'd like to include you in my network to share updates and stay in touch. - Rian Confirm that you know Rian Rian Lanigan Marketing | Event Management | Social Media Ireland You received an invitation to connect. LinkedIn will use your email address to make suggestions to our members in features like People You May Know. Unsubscribe Learn why we included this. If you need assistance or have questions, please contact LinkedIn Customer Service. © 2014, LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct. Mountain View, CA 94043, USA Continue reading

Rian Lanigan would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond? Rian Lanigan Recall Confirm you know Rian You are receiving Reminder emails for pending invitations. Unsubscribe. © 2013 LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Continue reading

Rian Lanigan would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond? Rian Lanigan Recall Confirm you know Rian You are receiving Reminder emails for pending invitations. Unsubscribe. © 2013 LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Continue reading

From Rian Lanigan Co Owner at Dirty Laundry Ireland I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.- Rian Confirm that you know Rian You are receiving Invitation to Connect emails. Unsubscribe © 2012, LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct. Mountain View, CA 94043, USA Continue reading

If you've never been to the Netherlands you can't help be overwhelmed by the sheer number of bicycles there are. In cities like Utrecht, the public spaces outside the railway stations is infested with bikes. They're double, sometimes tripple stacked, literally thousands of them. Continue reading

This weather had been very changible the day this scene was captured. Bright sunny spells were followed by heavy showers. But then the sea began to swell, waves were pounding the rocks and the lifeguard was furiously blowing his whistle and frantically jesturing to swimmers to get out. Continue reading

Dave Stein (Author: How Winners Sell) has written at length about the scurge of copyright abuse in the Sales Training business. It can be difficult to determine exactly what's original and what isn't. Many different melodies can be composed from the three same chords. As one prominent US sales trainer jokes on YouTube "I get my material from many sources. If it's just one source it's plagiarism, if it's from several, it's research" Here is the same sales trainer along side David Sandler (recorded nearly two decades ago). Have a listen, first to David Sandler, then to the other trainer. Is is just the words or is the melody the same? Continue reading

“Faced with the choice between changing our mind and proving the there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.” - JK Galbraith Continue reading

If you think that decision making is a straight process in an unstraight world, you’ll fail more often than you’ll succeed. Many years ago I sold into a well know manufacturer of mobile phones, pagers and walkie-talkies. One of the major projects I remember my customer undertaking was the outsourcing of their entire logistics function to a third party vendor. Continue reading

Productive habits are the backbone of effective selling behavior. New research by Psychologist Phillippa Lally of University College London suggests that habits take a lot longer than the 21 days that previous research claimed. Lally asked 96 undergraduates to form a habit in 12 weeks by repeating daily a healthy behavior such as drinking a glass of water with lunch. Her research showed that forming habits took on average nine and a half weeks (I wonder if Mickey Rourke or Kim Basinger were amongst the undergraduates?). Some took several months to form a habit. The good news is that missing one or two days of repetition will not impede the process. Continue reading

A businessman was talking with his procurement manager friend, when they both noticed a goofy-looking fellow bouncing down the sidewalk. The friend whispered, "That's Tommy, one of the stupidest salespeople you'll ever meet. Here, I'll show you." "Hey Tommy! Come here!" yelled the procurement manager. Tommy came bouncing over "Hi Mr. Williams!" The procurement manager pulled out a rusty Euro coin and a shiny 50 cent piece and told Tommy he could keep the one of his choice. Tommy looked long and hard at the Euro and 50 cent coins and then quickly snapped the 50 cent from the procurement manager's hand. Mr Williams looked at the businessman and said, "See, I told you." A short while later, the businessman caught up with Tommy and asked him why he chose the 50 cent. Tommy looked at him in the eye and said, "If I take the Euro, the game is over." Continue reading

This week we welcome Bernadette back into the hot seat to share her views on Consultative Selling and how it differs from Product Selling. Before joining Sandler Training, Bernadette spent 20 years with Computer Associates where she was consistently their top sales rep. A must listen! Continue reading

If you or some of your sales team struggle to sell at a premium, you have only one option - be the cheapest price and/or hope your competitors can't sell either. If you want to be the cheapest and return a profit, you will find yourself making cut backs in 'costs' like customer service and sales training. After all, these investments are optional - right. Then along came Facebook,LinkedIn, Blogs (and other social media)......... I came across the following conversation on facebook recently. The only thing that's edited is the name of the contributors. Continue reading

I was watching Piers Morgan interview last night with Elton John. Not one to care too much about what people think of him, I was intrigued with his answer to Morgan's question - "is there anything that still gives you a thrill?" His answer was emphatic - "whenever I play a new song for Bernie and I see the reaction on his face. I still get a real thrill from that, because I know that I've pleased him" Most people have a psychological need for approval and a need to be liked. The problem in selling is that our need for approval can get in our way. All too often we are faced with the (subconscious) dilemma - "do I want his [prospect's] money or do I want his approval?" Unfortunately, all too frequently we chose the wrong one. Elton John's reply to Morgans question made me think. Perhaps what we need to instead of looking for approval from everyone we connect with, is to decide on whose approval matters to us and whose doesn't. The approval of your close friends and family's probably should matter. A prospect's approval, often wielded as a bargaining chip (I'll give you my approval if you reduce your price), should never be sought. Without that distinction, we can get caught up in a catch-22 situation of looking for approval wherever you can get it. Continue reading

I'm watching our Minister for Finance deliver his 2010 budget and I'm reminded of a very salient lesson for sellers everywhere; Give people a tax benefit of €1,000 and you'll barely get a grunt of appreciation. Try to take the same €1,000 back in tax and the same people will want to burn your house down. We are far more motivated by fear of loss than they are by the promise of gain. Now, where did I leave those matches........ Continue reading

Back in the early 80's, every Saturday night, my friends and I would 'frequent' a nightclub that was ambitiously called 'tingles'. It was little more than a bingo hall with a couple of strobe lights and a few coloured filters that helped distinguish it, by a very fine line, from a 1950's 'country' (i.e. culchie) ballroom. Memory can play tricks on the mind, but I recall the jubulent response from 'the boys with long hair' anytime Jimmy Hendrix was played. It didn't have to be 'Hendrix' of course. Anything by 'The Quo' or AC/DC would suffice. Continue reading

Paul Lanigan, Sandler Training I just heard a business consultant give the following advice; Thank your customers, regularly. It's hard to argue with this. The subtext is that you should be grateful for their business and you should demonstrate that gratitude. I'm not suggesting that you don't thank your customers. The question you should really be asking yourself is; What would you need to change about your business and how you engage with your customers so that they are thanking you. Think about the advantage that would give you. Continue reading

Early this wednesday morning I was walking the short distance from my hotel in midtown manhattan to Penn Station, a trek of no more than 10 minutes. As I reached the corner of 34th and 7th the scene in front of me took my breath away. A crescent moon set against a blood red sky, stood proudly above the great Empire State building. I had my camera gear with me but I was with someone else and I was reluctant to ask them to stop and wait while I got set up to compose and take the picture. I was conscious we had to catch a train and neither of us were sure how long to would take to get our tickets and find the right platform. Continue reading

I was watching Mad Men the other night. I don’t know how you feel about the programme. I love it. Like every great character in any story, Don Draper, the main character, is not without his flaws (he’s impatient and deeply uncomfortable with his own self concept). Although dramatically over the top, I love his approach to selling.In a scene from the first episode of the fourth season, he is shown berating a colleague for bringing him a poorly qualified prospect. Continue reading

“How and when you discuss money during your sales process has a greater impact on selling success than your price” A few years ago, I engaged the serivces of a Dublin based PR company to help me promote an event I was organising. I found the two partners of the firm to be pleasant hosts and experts in their field. After a few minutes our conversation moved from small talk to the business matter at hand. It was a fairly straight forward deal so we had almost concluded our meeting within an hour. Continue reading

John is a specialist in leveraging social media and more particularly, linkedIn, to generate sales leads and build customer relationships. In this interview John and I discuss how best to use LinkedIn to support your prospecting efforts. Continue reading