Trying to make a complex sale? You must help a customer calculate the cost of his problem . . . and always be willing to walk away.

Some in the blog world are not at all happy that their beloved Flickr was acquired by Yahoo.

OK, now, the little secret about Yahoo buying Flickr has been out for weeks (as Jason Calacanis says it was all over SXSW. So much so that I asked Caterina about it when she was on stage last weekend). Now the new secret that I’m watching my blogs for? How much Yahoo paid.

To capture a larger market share and be viable, sustainable and profitable, you absolutely need to differentiate or distinguish your business, products and/or services from your competitors. In other words, you need to make your business special in the eyes of your customers and/or prospects.

Here’s a brief survey. How many of you sell something online? It could be a product or a service. Second question: If you sell anything online, do you write any material used to promote that product or service?

Becoming successful in the online world is no different than becoming successful offline. It requires vision, determination, and hard work.

A question I often get from clients and students goes something like this: “I’ve been collecting marketing ideas… and I have a drawer full! I also have a stack of promising leads I’ve accumulated. And I know it’s important to stay visible, so I do a lot of networking, but then I just end up with more names in the stack. How do I prioritize all this?”

Participation in B2B Exchanges is increasingly becoming one of the fastest growing marketing methods for businesses looking for augmenting their client base beyond their local markets.

The irony of eBay is that as it grows to be ever more successful, it draws the unsavoury element of the internet towards it. I’m talking about people who make it their business to attempt to defraud you and I in our eBay and PayPal transactions.

If you own a web site or if you are going to build a new one, the most important thing about your site is to achieve as high as possible visitors to sales conversion rate.

Do you ever wonder if you’re speaking a different language than your prospects? You may have recently launched a business, designed an innovative process or purchased state of the art equipment that leaves the competition in the dust, but no matter what you say or do, you aren’t attracting as many prospects as you need.

Sometimes we can all use a friendly reminder to keep us from backsliding into old ways of thinking about selling that lead us down the wrong path with potential clients.

Achievement of selling “excellence” is most often earned rather than learned. Outstanding professionals continuously seek to hone their skills from mistakes made and lessons learned in pursuit of success. Professional sales people in search of extraordinary selling competence are no exception.

If you are living in the USA or Canada and you operate a web- based business such as an online store, chances are you have limited your target audience to your home country. Opening your doors to customers around the world is something every business that utilizes the internet should consider. There are several myths that prevent many online business people from accepting customers from abroad. We’ll take a look at a few of them here in the hopes that you will decide to market and sell internationally and increase both your customer base and your profits.

Selling your products at shows can be difficult when you have a lot of competition. Although some show organizers are careful to have a good mix of vendors, it’s not uncommon for other shows to have 20% or more of the booths filled with vendors in the same niche – which is a buyer’s market and a seller’s disappointing show.

“If I build it, they will come.” This was what Willy Widget told me the other day when I said that his product needs to be tweaked to suit the target audience. He refused to believe that his product and website, which he has put so much effort into, will not sell.

Here are 7 high-powered selling tactics many businesses overlook or ignore. How many do you use?

If you are thinking about starting an online business, I need to warn you about some of the people that you are going to ‘meet’. Once you have a website or any form of online presence, these people will seek you out – I guarantee it!

Some businesses unknowingly set up barriers which make it difficult for customers to purchase their products.

I bought a new notebook computer yesterday.

I was fortunate enough to spend a weekend in Monte Carlo recently and being surrounded by the luxury yachts and other symbols of extreme wealth got me thinking about retirement.