While seasoned salespeople are highly valued for their expertise, they can sometimes pose a challenge when it comes to change. Name any kind of change—in company structure, compensation, sales territories, product lines, ownership, etc.—and it’s likely that many seasoned salespeople hate it. It’s understandable to some degree. Successful salespeople have fine-tuned their techniques and are… Read More
How “Predictable” Organizations Master Their Markets and Make The Number
According to our latest research, only 9% of all companies have reached the top. The top of our Revenue Growth Maturity Model (Level 5), that is. We call this group “predictable”—i.e., predictably successful. These companies have eliminated every barrier to innovation. Market dominance. And long-term revenue growth. Internally, they run like clockwork. Externally, they’ve mastered… Read More
How can a pigeon, a sword and a fist full of cartoons help your team sell more?
In How to Get a Meeting with Anyone (Top Sales World Book of the Week, 2-29-2016), I just introduced the concept of Contact Marketing. But what is it and how can it help you crush your sales numbers? I should explain that I’m not a sales trainer or expert. But I am a business owner—and… Read More
How Can Marketing And Sales Best Work Together To Enable Sales Success?
Whether you’re in sales or marketing, alignment between these two crucial functions will be something that you’ve no doubt struggled with. It doesn’t have to be this way. After all, the number one priority for both is the same – to build stronger, more profitable relationships with customers and prospects. As a Chief Marketing Officer,… Read More
How Do You Measure Sales Success?
Some easy dashboard metrics for organizations who want to squeeze as much as they can from their strategic sales-management plans. In today’s tough economic times, the companies most likely to thrive are those that invest time in scrutinizing their strategic sales-management. plans. They review everything from their forecasts to their pipelines, looking hard at important… Read More
How Game Changers Can Win The Sale
Having a good Sales Process gives you space to think and come up with innovative ways of winning. I call them Game Changers. Here are the 10 best Game Changers I heard of in 2015, though I would rather forget about the last one! An offer they couldn’t refuse It’s tough to get prospects to… Read More
How One Simple Trick Can Transform Your Next Sales Conversation
One simple trick. What if that’s all it took to make your next pitch or presentation more persuasive and compelling? What if this technique could help you convince your prospect that the change you’re proposing is better than what they’re doing today? And, what if you could get them to consider paying more for it?… Read More
How Sales can help Procurement succeed
I recently had the good fortune to interview Manuel Herrero, the VP Supply Chain Management and Procurement of Bischofszell Food Ltd. The interview was a rare chance to find out how one of the most forward thinking managers responsible for procurement thinks about salespeople. Just to give you a little background, Bischofszell Food Ltd. is… Read More
How the Personalization Trend is Breeding New Marketing Techniques
Fishing as a hobby requires skill and patience. You need to be knowledgeable of and focused on what type of fish you’re going after, the best location to catch them, what bait they’ll go for, even the presentation of that bait. You have to take into consideration weather and water conditions, and know how they… Read More
How to Boost Sales Productivity Through Q4
Q4 is a precarious time for productivity. The chaos of the holidays combined with the end-of-year crunch means competing priorities for employees and plenty of opportunities for performance to slip. As Fast Company says, “The season is rife with distractions in and outside work, where everyone is twice as busy and half as focused”. Indeed,… Read More
How to Increase Sales Productivity: Survey Says …
Every sales team wants an extra edge. Even a small productivity boost means more time selling to more prospects. So what are best practices to increase sales team productivity? Miller Heiman’s research department asked that same question. It looked at where sales teams are making investments to lift sales productivity in 2015. The top two… Read More
How To Sell To Flustered, Overwhelmed Business People
The phone rang. “Hello, this is Rhett,” Rhett answered. It was Stacy, an old colleague of his. Ever since budget cuts forced her company to run on a skeleton structure, Stacy’s HR department has been buried in more work they can handle. Her company needs to implement a new human capital management program to help… Read More
If There’s One Thing Your Sales Analytics is Missing, It’s This
Despite our industry’s growing obsession with sales analytics, most data still can’t address the question that bedevils every sales executive: do my managers and reps have what it takes to achieve their revenue goals? By quantifying sales capabilities, and applying data-driven coaching insights to the activity metrics they use everyday, sales leaders are finding the… Read More
If you had it to do over again; what would you do differently-if anything?
Self Help for Salespeople Every high performing salesperson and sales leader most likely has used this phrase to increase their professionalism. Have you? During the past 18 years of working with and training sales managers around the world this phrase is one of the most powerful lessons I believe we pass on to our clients,… Read More
In Enterprise Pursuits, It’s About Time
Of the many daunting challenges that sales teams face in selling into complex enterprise accounts, one of the most frustrating is that of long, drawn-out sales cycles. Months can pass, even years, while pursuing a major opportunity with an enterprise account, an opportunity that may or may not be won. As that precious time passes,… Read More
Is Unused Sales Content Silently Killing Your Company?
Many companies have finally come around to understanding that content is what makes the sales engine run. But once this realization is made, a vast majority of companies jump to the conclusion that simply creating more sales content is the solution. The issue here is that as more content is created, companies’ content repositories become… Read More
Is your Sales Process under control?
If you are not in charge of your Sales Process your forecast will be no more than guesswork and you will lose opportunities that you thought you were going to win. The truth is most Sales People do not take charge of the Sales Process. The really worrying thing is – they think they do…. Read More
Lead Nurturing by Tickle & Woo: Finally, a Way to Banish that Nagging Guilt
Guilt. It’s always there. And I’m not talking about that fudgy brownie from last night. While we’re busily reaching for the low-hanging fruit, relationships with other prospects, customers and key influencers tend to suffer. It’s difficult to stay in touch with everyone. Sales professionals are still dealing with the legacy of the Great Recession: too… Read More
Learning From Lost Sales
When they lose a deal, most sales people take what the customer gives as a reason at face value. For example – the price was too high. They don’t dig deeper to identify deficits in their own sales approach. That’s a mistake. Have I understood you correctly? We lost the deal but none of the… Read More
Lessons learnt in Sales #3
I am not super fit, but I try and keep the weight off by running on the treadmill every day. Repetitive, boring, but necessary, I am not actually running anywhere, I don’t even have a destination in mind, just one thought; keep on going, keep on going. It occurred to me that this has been… Read More
Lifelong learning – What sales professionals need to know?
With so much written about robotics, automation and digital disruption, do you ever feel afraid of being left out because you’re afraid of being left behind? As we continue to witness rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence and automation, the real challenge of how we, as individuals, can add more value is a pressing matter in… Read More
Like a Suit – Tailored Training is Better Than Off the Peg
I was asked recently how much more it costs to develop a customised training course rather than run one of our standard courses. So I looked carefully at a recent course we customised for a global supplier of maintenance services to the mining industry and worked out that both the client and I had each… Read More
Look in the mirror – there’s your USP
A Unique Selling Proposition is what every Sales Person wants – that killer argument that makes your proposition irresistible. Trouble is, even if you have one it won’t be for long, competitors will find a way to match your prices or copy your technical innovation and then where is your competitive advantage? We can’t win… Read More
Make Your Sales Force a Competitive Weapon
With less opportunities to engage with prospects, and engagement taking place later in the sales cycle, your sales force needs to become a competitive weapon. As their sales leader, you need to do all you can to help them. In a changed B2B sales model, how can you ensure that reps are efficient and effective… Read More