No one likes cold calling, well most don’t, so you can stop writing that e-mail telling me that you’re the exception that proves the rule. I don’t like it, I know it is god’s punishment to sales people, but it works, and I have made the connection between successful cold calls, a robust pipeline and… Read More
3 Things You Can Do Now To Close The Year Strong
Last week I took part in a panel discussion sponsored by KiteDesk, along with two of my favourite pundits, Matt Heinz and Mike Weinberg. In the discussions leading up to the event we wanted to deliver something of substance, people can put into practice right away in almost every market segment, and something that would… Read More
3 Things You Should Do Again
As selling and sales approaches evolve and we adopt new practices, we also tend to forget give up or move past practices that when used, still facilitate sales, foster relationships, and help us succeed. I’d like to present three that you can weave back in to your routine and step up your sales. Ask to… Read More
3 Ways The Beatles Will Make You A Better Cold Caller
If you ask sales people why they hate/fear cold calling their response always revolves around them, their feelings, and rarely the buyer’s. Even when they mention the buyer, it is very much through their own filters, “I wouldn’t like that”, or about the buyer’s reaction to the call. It is important to remember that the… Read More
A Verbal Painting is Worth A 1,000 Words
We have all the expression above, but it really rings home in sales, especially for successful sales people. If you look at sales as being an educational process, that is you learning from the prospect, even while you are helping them learn how you can help them reach their objective, let’s focus on the latter,… Read More
Add Salesformics – Stir and Sell
One of the opportunities offered by the web 2.0 world, or as many around sales like to call it social selling, is to leverage a number of tools to improve and accelerate the quality of interactions, especially at the early part of the sales cycle. The challenge is how to leverage the various tools, integrate… Read More
All Those Empty Yeses In Your Pipeline
Getting a Yes from a buyer is nice, feels good, but can be deceiving, and lead to disappointment. Good sellers borrow from Ronald Reagan, “Yes, but validate” I understand the concept behind gaining “small” or “incremental” agreements from prospects through every meeting and throughout the sales cycle. However, as with many things in sales it… Read More
Are You Ready For 2020?
During one memorable sales training session, I experienced in my corporate days, focused on understanding how different people in the buying organization interact with time differently. In fact, different players will look at the exact same thing, and see something different based on their role in the organization and their place in the hierarchy of… Read More
Development vs. Budget Cycles
I, like many in my profession have a unique perch when it comes to looking at sales. We are actively selling, and as a result face many of the challenges and opportunities our customers do. But we have two added bonuses that many don’t. First is that we get to see how a host of… Read More
Don’t Parrot – Integrate!
Given the fact that we think a lot faster than people speak, and much faster than our ability to listen, it is always important to look for ways to stay focused on what a prospect is telling us, and not rush ahead or interrupt with a thought triggered by something they said. My favourite way,… Read More
Don’t Wait To Ask For Referrals
I continue to be amazed that despite all that is written about the importance and success of referrals, how few sales people actually leverage this proven and effective method of sourcing new sales opportunities. Whenever I ask a group of sales reps “How many people here ask for referrals?” I still find that way less… Read More
Driving Commerce Not Sales is Key To Success
Sales people are always looking for the secret to sales success, more revenue and glory. One path is to look beyond sales and see how they can drive commerce. At first glance one may be inclined to dismiss this as just semantics, but in as much as attitudes drive actions, and actions lead to results,… Read More
Explain To Me Why You Think This Works?
There is a question many salespeople like to ask which I feel is working against them rather than for them. The culprit, is the “Explain to me…?” “Explain to me how you currently enter data from system A to system C and E, while ensuring you suppliers are up to date?” On the face of… Read More
Focus On The Why – The How Will Follow
The headline seems simple enough, I bet most a nodding with familiar approval, yet when you watch many sales people in action, you see them focusing much more on the How, not the Why. This is especially fatal early in the process, when they start they prospecting, be that a call, an e-mail, or a… Read More
GAP Selling
Almost every conversation in sales, starts or ends with the pursuit of value; at the same time there are as many different definitions and understandings of value as there are sellers and buyers. Without a clear and actionable definition of value, many conversations between buyers and sellers are less than effective, fail to create alignment… Read More
Is Sales a Numbers Game?
Sales expert Tibor Shanto challenges the notion that sales is not a numbers game. It very much is. Those who want to deny that want to dodge the accountability that come with being measured. Tibor looks at how numbers are central to your sales goal or quota, numbers are central to understanding conversion ratios, and… Read More
Knowledge: A Seller’s Equalizer – Sales eXecution 249
Every day you read something about how today’s buyers are 60-70 percent through their buying process before they will reach out to a salesperson. You also know that I believe that if that is the segment of the market you are pursuing, you are an order taker, not a seller, a seller’s job is to go… Read More
KPI’s: Check list vs. Commitment to Success
Key Performance Indicator or KPI’s, have become common in sales and sales performance management, but the question is are they effective and have they delivered on their promise. A Key Performance Indicator or Performance Indicator is a kind of Measure of Performance. Conventionally they measure things such as number of new orders, cash collection efficiency,… Read More
KPI’s – What Are They To You?
Talk to any ‘executoide’, and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) are bound to be part of the conversation. Nice and practical concept, good resume fodder, often misused or abused by many, especially from a sales point of view. I often get the sense that many see KPI standing for Key Political Initiatives or Key (to my) Personal Incentive. As a concept, KPI’s… Read More
Millennial sales pros driving ‘bring your own app’ trend
It wasn’t too long ago that companies were grappling with the reality of bring your own device (BYOD), and while not everyone has come to terms with that trend, we now have yet another to contend with, BYOA, or bring your own app. Pushing the discussion in both instances are the sales teams within these… Read More
Personal Deficiency Bonus
With special thanks to S.G. and my friend B.P. Everyone, including me, writes a piece this time of year about closing the year strong. For the most part these are aimed at front line sales people, and the better ones offer choices that make sense year-round even if initially implemented in Q4. Few are aimed… Read More
Sales & Consequences
Unlike the old game show, in sales, it is for real; every deal has a real winner and that many more losers, to be specific, if three sales reps are bidding for a deal, one will win the other two will lose. What is also real in sales is that every action – or –… Read More
Sales Happen In Time
Each day we each start out with 24 hours, at the end of the day your success is determined by how you used that time. Sales people do not run out of skill or talent, they RUN OUT OF TIME. Now you don’t have to… DOWNLOAD HERE
Sales Referral Etiquette – Sales eXecution 255
We all know the value of referrals, although some seem to revere the practice a little too much, suggesting it trumps or eliminates cold calling or other forms of buyer engagement, when we all know it is about how to integrate approaches. But that’s for another post, today I want to focus on the etiquette… Read More