Absence doesn’t make your customers’ hearts grow fonder. Your clients want to hear from you … really. They don’t want a pitch or even to hear about your services. They want to know what you know. Many of your clients don’t get out of the office very often. They keep their heads buried in their work, occasionally emerging… Read More
Maximizing Referrals: Strategies for Turning Your Network Into a Powerful Revenue Generator
Learn more about the science (and art) of referral selling in my new webinar with Finlistics. It’s interesting how you meet people, and when you sell by referral, you meet a lot of interesting people. In the summer of 2015, I got an urgent call from Barry, a colleague who was working with Dr. Stephen… Read More
Message to Management: Are You Losing Your Top Talent?
If your sales reps are overwhelmed, they might decide the job’s not worth the stress. The job of sales reps is to sell—to maintain strong sales pipelines and spend their time talking to clients. When you force them to spend hours entering data, coaching new hires, and attending long, boring meetings, they’ll leave. More than 60 percent… Read More
NEWSFLASH: Buyer-Centric Sales Is NOT New
I was ready to scream! When I read about how sales has evolved to be buyer-centric and relationship-driven, I was ready to scream. Good salespeople have always approached sales this way. Buyer-centric sales is NOT a new strategy. But it has become an increasingly rare one. “The balance of power in a sales relationship has… Read More
Pick Up the Damn Phone
You’ve heard it: Television will kill radio. Video killed the radio star. And social media and the Internet will eliminate the time-consuming, face-to-face aspect of sales. Um, no. Marketing automation, CRM, social media, and other technology tools empower us to sell more efficiently and cost-effectively. But if you think back over your most successful business… Read More
Pick Up the Phone, Bring In the Money
Our smartest, tried-and-true tool for business development, lead generation, and deal closing has always been ourselves. And that’s not going to change anytime soon—if ever. The digital world—as great as it is—threatens personal connections. Humans need face-to-face contact with others. Even with whisper-light computing power and immediate, 140-character Twitter posts, we are a face-to-face species…. Read More
PowerPoint Is Killing Your Sales Presentations
Strip away the tech to increase sales effectiveness. I used to add long columns of numbers once, and I was always correct. I never had to add backwards or have someone else check my math. To this day, I can still look at numbers and ascertain whether they have the correct number of zeros at… Read More
Quit Bugging Me with Your Stupid Sales Pitches on Social Media
I’m not connected with thousands of people on LinkedIn. I don’t invite people to connect with me unless I know them or would like to get to know them. And I don’t accept every invitation I receive to connect. The reason is simple: LinkedIn is not a numbers game. The goal of social media is… Read More
Refer Your Way to the C-Suite
Referral selling. You’ve heard the business case: Decision-makers always will meet with you when you’ve been referred by someone they trust. https://s3.amazonaws.com/TopSales/sales-library/2014/june-5/Refer+Your+Way+to+the+C-Suite.mp4
Referred: Rediscovering the Power of the Original Social Network
Much about the business world has changed in recent years—from the Great Recession that rocked our economy, to the emergence of social media, to the technological developments that have fundamentally shifted the way we work. But when it comes to sales, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed and won’t anytime soon—if ever. People still do… Read More
Sales Leadership Is Missing It Big (and Here’s the Proof)
Research shows cold calling scripts and tricks don’t work, but referrals do. When will sales leadership wake up? They still measure the number of dials and emails sent in a day, when the return on these sales activities is dismal. The last I heard, it took eight to 12 touches to reach a prospect—and that… Read More
Sales Reps Not Closing Sales? Try This
This broken link is to blame for sales teams’ biggest closing mistakes. “My salespeople can’t close.” This is the frustrated lament I hear regularly from sales leaders. But not closing sales is never the real problem. It’s just a symptom. The problem is that sales reps neglect important activities during earlier stages of the sales process…. Read More
Small Business Owners Don’t Want to Learn How to Sell
Hiding behind technology doesn’t drive sales—THIS WILL. October is National Women’s Small Business Month in the U.S.! I know it seems like there’s a month for everything, but this is certainly one worth celebrating. Closing the gender gap, here and abroad, has been slow, but it’s also been steady. Just consider that in the 1960s, women… Read More
Social Deja Vu: We’ve Been Here Before
Even when there’s nothing on, we’ll always have reruns. You’ve heard it: Television will kill radio. Video killed the radio star. And technology will eliminate the time-consuming, face-to-face aspect of communication. Um, no. Because the more things change, the more they stay the same—in sales and in life. Old but Not Irrelevant People have always… Read More
STOP Cold Calling!
Why is it when the economy tanks, article after article, webinar after webinar, sales strategy after sales strategy promote cold calling as the tried and true prospecting method? STOP cold calling. It’s a total waste of time. Your time. The prospect’s time. And wasting time is stupid. So stop, already. Welcome to my blog. I… Read More
Stop Spamming People
Get over it. They don’t want to talk to you. How many unsolicited emails do you get each day? Today I received 25 … before 10:00 a.m. Guess how many I opened? Not a single one. I’m not interested in student loan assistance, Russian beauties, light therapy for depression, surveys, blood pressure solutions, cat food… Read More
Stop Typing, Start Talking: 3 Ways to Succeed in Sales 2.0
Technology helps salespeople do many things more efficiently, but to seal the deal, we must put away our toys and have a grown-up conversation. The digital world opens up many new opportunities for salespeople, but it also threatens personal connections. Even with whisper-light computing power and immediate, 140-character Twitter posts, people still buy from people… Read More
The Real Reason Your Sales Reps Can’t Close: How Are They Prospecting?
“My salespeople can’t close.” This is the frustrated lament I hear regularly from sales management. But failing to close is never the real problem. It’s just the symptom. The problem is that sales reps neglect important activities during earlier stages of the sales process. Unless you address the broken links in your prospecting system, your… Read More
The Ultimate Sales App—No Smartphone Required
Think your smartphone is the most powerful sales tool at your disposal? Think again. Yes, think again. We love our sales apps. Social media, CRM, sales enablement platforms—each of these promises killer features that will streamline the sales process and make us all rich. As if! The ultimate sales app doesn’t require a smartphone, a… Read More
There is No Such Thing as a Warm Call
A warm call fanstasy? You’ve done the research on social media, sent inviting emails in which you make a great case for your prospects to talk with you. That’s not cold calling is it? Wrong, says referral expert Joanne Black. “There’s no such thing as a warm email or a warm phone call. If you… Read More
They Actually Said My Sales Lead Generation Is Old School
But here’s what they’re missing on referral B2B lead generation. Suddenly, everyone’s on the referral bandwagon for sales lead generation. However, most sales “experts” get referrals all wrong. I’ve had it with all the referral myths and misunderstandings—which include, but are not limited, to: Referrals don’t scale Referrals are a favor Referrals can be digital… Read More
To Get B2B Leads, Pick Up the Damn Phone!
Have you forgotten that selling is social? “Turn off your computer. You’re actually going to have to turn off your phone and discover all that is human around us.” That’s what Eric Schmidt, then chairman and CEO of Google, told the graduating class of the University of Pennsylvania in May 2009. Ten years later, his advice is… Read More
Trust Trumps Technology—Who Do You Know?
This is not a rant about technology. (It’s the opposite.) An executive at a leading marketing automation company surprised the heck out of me when I interviewed him for Pick Up the Damn Phone! I expected to hear all about the advantages of marketing automation. Boy, was I wrong! Instead, he talked about the power… Read More
Truth Bomb: You All Look Alike to Your Buyers
How do you tell one internet security company from another? One IT provider from another? One marketing resource, one insurance broker, one attorney, one banker, one consultant? Often you can’t tell them apart, because they have similar offerings and the same party line about what they do. There’s nothing unique and certainly no reason to… Read More