You probably think this is a trick question, the answer is obvious, isn’t it? Be careful before you respond too quickly…… Now, I’ve got you worried and wondering, particularly long time readers. Many of you would say, Quality. You would be partly right. “Aha,” you think, “It’s both!” You would be partly right. Now you […]
Sales Activities
Sales Coaching, One Size Never Fits All
Too often, our sales coaching, if we do it, really misses the mark. We tend to look at things the same way, coaching our people the same way—when what they really need may be very different. Let me use an example. It is actually based on a real customer situation, but provides a great illustration […]
Sales Performance Improvement, Where to Start
I wrote, “Improving Sales Performance Without Changing How You Sell.” Readers started responding, “This is great, where do we start?” Here are some thoughts: “One size fits all:” Too often, we have a “one size fits all” approach to performance improvement. We focus on one thing, for example prospecting or pipeline coverage, and inflict this on the entire […]
Building on Shaky Foundations
It was an interesting conversation. I was meeting with a very thoughtful sales executive. He was about to make some pretty big investments in training and in technology tools. I asked him why he was making those investments, he replied, “We really need to raise the skills and productivity of the sales people. They aren’t […]
Do Just This One Thing!
Imagine coaching a basketball player, “All you have to do is master your foul shots, they are the single most important thing to win games.” All of us, even those who don’t play basketball, would say this is ridiculous coaching. We would argue you have to master everything—dribbling, passing, inside and outside shots, defense, playmaking, […]
Stop Selling, Start Helping
A while back, we explored some of the key takeaways from a content marketing trends report produced by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), and I identified some trends worthy of more in-depth exploration. They included: Well-researched personas can help teams create successful content; however, too few content marketers (42%) are actually talking with customers to […]
“What Could Go Wrong?”
It seems to be human nature that we don’t want to think about what could go wrong. Particularly in sales, we are continually optimistic, we want to be positive, particularly with our customers. So why would we ever want to talk about what could go wrong? Particularly when we are in the middle of the […]
Are You the Salesperson Creating Value for Your Customer?
I was talking to a team of sales people about engaging their customers with insight and getting them to think about their businesses in different ways. They happened to sell supply chain management software. The software, like most other supply chain software solutions enabled their customers to better understand and manage inventory, orders, quality, scheduling […]
How to Track Sales Calls and Increase Conversions
Whether you have an established business or a growing one, sales calls are an essential part of your success. According to a Bright Local survey, 60 percent of customers still prefer to call businesses as part of their online search. However, to translate calls from prospects to sales, you’ll need to track them. Unfortunately, many […]
Cold Calling Never Went Out of Style
Recently, someone made a comment saying, “It’s interesting to see cold calling coming back into style…” The comment startled me, and I can see where the speaker was coming from, but I couldn’t have disagreed more. The reality is cold calling has never gone out of style. As you look at the performance of consistent […]
