Technology has become the driving force in developing many aspects of our lives, but when it comes to sales training, our overreliance on technology is distracting us from the most important and timeless aspect of selling–connecting with the buyer. The growing market of sales technology has had a significant effect on where we place our training dollars…. Read More
Whose Value Proposition Is It?
Value propositions. We know all about them, don’t we? Or do we? Let’s think for a moment about definitions. “Proposition” is defined in the dictionary as “a statement or assertion that expresses a judgment or opinion” or as a “scheme or plan of action, especially in a business context”. Interesting. While there’s a lot to… Read More
Why 2019 Needs to be the Year for AI-for-Sales
Having spoken on the topic of sales transformation a couple dozen times during the past year at various conferences, sales kickoff meetings, and webinars, a two-fold question I kept repeatedly getting from sales executives was when will AI actually impact sales and how. My short answer to the first part of the question is to… Read More
Why AI Won’t Take Your Sales Job. Seriously.
AI is influencing every aspect of our daily lives. It’s in our appliances, learning our preferred temperatures. Email is also getting a dose of AI with one-click response options and suggested wording to complete sentences. And of course, AI is making the very important recommendations for new films or TV shows to binge watch. It’s… Read More
Why are Salespeople Still so Technologically Inept? – Conversation with Jonathan London
If you haven’t read Jonathan London’s book Using Technology to Sell: Tactics to Ratchet Up Your Sales (co-authored by Martin Lucas), do so. Technology has changed the dynamics between buyers and sellers. The fundamental steps of the sales process have not changed but the context of who does what and when has radically changed. Jonathan’s… Read More
Why aren’t you funding sales? Three costly mistakes you need to pay attention to…today
Gartner prediction – by 2017, the CMO will spend more in IT than the CIO. This bold statement is now a couple of years old, but the prediction is certainly proving to be true. The rise of technologies like marketing automation, CRM (which may or may not fall to the marketing budget) and content management… Read More
Why Customers Buy the Wrong Solution
The project is a disaster – whose fault is it? There is an increasing concern among customers that they are being sold the wrong solutions and there is plenty of evidence to back that up. The best known problems have been in IT, you will have heard of multi million dollar failures hitting Obama care… Read More
Why Digital Marketing Isn’t Working In Enterprise Accounts
Digital marketing isn’t working in enterprise accounts. It generates awareness and leads – but it isn’t driving quality pipeline or generating sales. I talk to “C” level executives in some of the world’s largest companies. They say they aren’t getting enough quality leads from digital marketing to make their numbers in their Enterprise segments. Most… Read More
Why I don’t give a monkey’s about your Value Proposition
What kind of live entertainment do you enjoy? Football, ballet, opera, theatre, art exhibitions, bullfighting , pole dancing, pop music, Hawaiian nose flutes? If you asked 100 CEOs that question you’d get a lot of very different answers. If you drilled down even further within a genre – for example football or pop music –… Read More
Why Technology is Not Enough
Jonathan Farrington in conversation with George Brontén, Founder & CEO of Membrain Jonathan’s guest is George Brontén, Founder & CEO of Membrain.com. As a life-long entrepreneur, he is always looking for new ways to achieve improved business results using innovative software, skills and processes and they discuss why today why technology is not enough. https://s3.amazonaws.com/TopSales/interviews/2019/february/JF-Interview-Series-George-Bronten.mp3
Why the Customer HAS to be at the Center of the Sales System
Jonathan Farrington interviews Sam Reese, CEO of MHI Global, the newly formed company which, after a very active 12 month acquisition strategy, has seen five companies joining forces in the sales performance space, forming the global company MHI Global, and pioneering the customer-management industry. The proven methodology, expertise and measurable results of Miller Heiman, AchieveGlobal,… Read More
Will You Hit Your Number This Quarter?
At some point or another, every Sales VP hears this question from his CEO: “Will you hit your number this quarter?” This question may seem innocent at first, but it often spurs a sense of panic within that Sales VP. Why? Because, all too often, he just doesn’t know the answer. Usually, the Sales VP… Read More
Winning With Change (“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.” Jim Rohn)
As an eager and restless child growing up in a small coal-mining town in Western Pennsylvania, I didn’t have much exposure to the world of sales. Most of the men in the neighborhood worked in the coalmines or steel mills, and my family members worked at my grandfather’s strip mining company. Everyone, that is, except… Read More
With Major Accounts, Retention is not a Noun
We’ve all heard the compelling statistics. Most selling organizations derive 80% of their revenues from 20% of their clients – the Pareto Principle. Acquiring a new major account is up to 20 times more expensive than keeping a current one. And even a small percentage increase in a firm’s overall major client retention rate has… Read More
World Class Sales Performance – The Defining Difference.
Jonathan Farrington interviews Tamara Schenk, Research Director for the MHI Research Institute. Most organizations seek top performers who can help to grow the company, but I know that you and the team at MHI Research Institute continuously research this idea of top “performer”. What would you say is the defining difference that sets a world… Read More
Your Own Personal Sales Academy—an Interview with Jonathan Farrington
To look at the seven year history of Top Sales World is to see one man’s dream of collaboration and community come true. The man is Jonathan Farrington—whose vision for development of sales forces now spans the globe. To add to that vision, this month Jonathan is launching Top Sales Academy – an online, four… Read More
Your Sales Management Guru’s Guide to. . . Leading High-Performance Sales Teams
In Your Sales Management Guru’s Guide series, sales management expert Ken Thoreson teaches sales leaders the essentials for leading and developing high-performance sales teams. In this book you’ll gain skills and techniques for leading and managing your sales team to the next level. There are 39 chapters literally jammed with hundreds of proven ideas that… Read More
Your WORD of the Year
Are you one of those people that create New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of the year, only to find yourself in March already giving up on them? Or maybe you are a part of the 38% of people who don’t make resolutions in the first place. Regardless, if you are working on your resolutions… Read More