Forecasting is important to our business, we spend a lot of time (often too much) on forecasts. But too often, we get forecasting wrong. Some observations: We strive for forecast accuracy, but we will never be perfectly accurate. Even the dictionary calls it a prediction or an estimate. Yet we waste a lot of time […]
Sales
And Action!
It seems simple on the surface. You sell something awesome that people really need and want. In theory, all you should have to do is let them know you’re open to selling it to them, right? And yet we’ve all experienced the frustrating situation of having someone tell us that they genuinely want what we […]
It Is Always About Execution
I’ve been writing a lot about our Sales Execution Framework and a “Back To Basics” approach to sales management and selling. These articles have generated some interesting calls and reactions. A lot of the discussion has been around sales training programs, new approaches, or new tools that companies have implemented—or tried to implement. I had […]
Do You Work with The Sales Team?
Like it or not, whether you work for an agency or client-side marketing department, much of your success is out of your hands. In the “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” analogy, it’s your job to lure the horse to the water. But you are depending on the […]
Sales Pipeline: Quantity or Quality?
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 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 Your Personal Brand—Again
There’s a lot of discussion about how important it is for salespeople to “build their personal brands.” I’ve written about this topic several times before, even using the same title before. But it’s a topic, as much as I wish would go away, doesn’t. But what does it mean to build our personal brands? Many […]
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 […]
Does Your Business Need a Customer Appreciation Strategy?
It goes without saying that you appreciate your customers. Without them, you wouldn’t have a business to run. But do your customers know how much you appreciate them? It’s easy to get so caught up in the process of generating new leads and prospective customers that you fail to give your existing customers the right […]
