Imagine walking into a great restaurant where the waiter presents you with the dessert menu and says, “At Chez TSW, we expect everyone to begin with our fine dessert selections. What would you like today?” Perhaps they have choices like Crème Brûlée, Flourless Chocolate Cake, Key Lime Pie, Chocolate Brownie Sundae, Seasonal Fresh Fruit, Assorted… Read More
Why Companies Must Teach Their Salespeople to Sell Value
Those of us in the space who write a lot tend to write about what’s current, what we care about, where we see things trending, and what we specialize in. Those topics aren’t always the same as what you need to be reading. It’s the same with most of the companies that we help. They… Read More
Why Mastery is Required to Significantly Increase Revenue
Recently, I wrote an article for LinkedIn that discussed the Incredible Business Disconnect that Nobody is Talking About. In a nutshell, I looked at the myriad of sales content that has been written, recorded, produced and delivered over the past several years. More specifically, I looked at everything that has targeted consultative selling, asking questions,… Read More
Why Nobody Cares about Sales Excellence
Have you ever tried to be really good at anything? A sport? A hobby? Your work? Running a company? Leading a sales force? Selling? Being great is difficult but becoming great is significantly more difficult. It involves an awful lot of hard work, practice, failure, discouragement, hope, improvement and eventually, increasing levels of achievement and… Read More
Why Prospects Don’t Buy From You Today!
Did you watch any of the 2014 World Series? I watched a few pitches of Game 6 and I’m a baseball guy! Why so little? I was watching Jake Peavy give it his all, trying to hold things together, and thought to myself, “Why am I watching this? I don’t care about either of these two… Read More
Why Sales Leaders Continue to Hire the Wrong Salespeople
Today I spoke with three different sales leaders and discussed specific candidates they liked for various sales roles in their companies. You would think that’s a good thing, them checking with me first to make sure they were on the right track. And no, it’s not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of thoughtfulness… Read More
Why This Salesperson Failed to Close the Deal
Have you ever played golf? Did you ever play a hole where you drove it perfectly off the tee, hit a great shot from the fairway and still couldn’t get it on the green in regulation? Of course you did. Me too. Almost always. This is a true story about a salesperson who experienced the… Read More
Why You Should Use All Five Senses on Your Sales Calls
I hope you can make sense of this article. My sense is that you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll agree, you’ll disagree, and you’ll learn something. You’re already using two of the 5 senses on your sales calls – your sense of hearing and your sense of sight. But are you using them correctly? You see… Read More
Will Salespeople Ever be able to Sell Value?
Maybe not. A lot of companies are training their salespeople to sell value and failing. Is it their internal trainers? Their sales managers? The salespeople themselves? Most salespeople can talk about their value proposition, and they can certainly add something of value, but they are unable to provide value – enough value so that their… Read More
You Must Understand How to Get Your Prospects to Buy from You
One of the most challenging things for sales leaders and salespeople to comprehend is understanding the difference between needs, issues, problems, quantification and a prospect’s compelling reasons to buy from you. For some in sales, these five things are essentially the same. For others, the differences represent nuances that don’t need to be further explored. … Read More