Posts Tagged ‘Sales’
Customers Should Care About Your Profitability
Too often, we succumb to price pressure—even worse, we lead with price, making pricing the center of focus of our sales efforts, then being forced to discount to “win” the business. What if we started shifting our conversations from discussions of discounting to educating them about the importance, to them, of maintaining our pricing and…
Read MoreHow to Handle 5 Common Sales Scenarios
The most successful entrepreneurs are great salespeople. Have you ever seen Steve Jobs, Elon Musk or Mark Benioff presenting in front of thousands of people, all eagerly listening and buying into their vision? If Jobs, Musk or Benioff weren’t true masters of sales and fantastic storytellers, there would be no Apple, Tesla or Salesforce. Here’s…
Read MoreAre Your Sales Metrics Aligned with Your Business Strategy?
Not long ago, I spoke with a frustrated CEO. His company was doing OK, but somehow not meeting his expectations. Like many companies, the customers’ needs were changing quite profoundly. They were rapidly shifting their solution offerings to match customer needs and to compete. They were investing in new areas, had launched some products to…
Read MoreWhat We Care About vs. What Our Customers Care About
There is a huge chasm between customers and our own sales and marketing initiatives. This is nothing new, yet it’s what keeps us from connecting with our customers and prospects. It’s what causes our customers and prospects to shut down, ignoring our best efforts to engage them and sell them something (you can begin to…
Read MoreShhh, We’re Secret Shopping!
If there’s one marketing tactic that we execute for clients that always yields incredible results, it’s when we secret shop their operation. Without exception, a secret shopping program will: Provide insights that surprise you (good and bad) Spotlight specific areas where your training and communication have failed and you/your employees are hurting your brand Uncover…
Read MoreDelivering Insight: What Happens Next?
The CMO and Sales VP were reviewing their latest programs to get their people delivering insight to their customers. They went through a series of provocative issues and insights—each tuned to a specific set of problems and challenges. Each offered a unique point of view, helping the customer think differently about the business. Each was…
Read MoreAre You Guilty of Picking Things Apart?
It seems to be human nature to pick things apart. We may be looking at a new prospecting or marketing program, we may be looking at a deal strategy, we may be looking at a new organizational structure. Whatever the level we act, we have a propensity to look for faults, or what could go…
Read MoreIncrease Sales by 30% Using Your Basic Business Data
The media often highlight companies that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on big data solutions that reveal patterns and trends in customer behavior and interactions. “Big data” is a buzzword, but only large businesses actually have enough data on which to do scientific analysis and apply it to their marketing automation. Meanwhile, small and…
Read MoreCustomers Aren’t Widgets
I’ve always thought sales is more science than art. I believe selling is a set of disciplined processes, many of which can be “engineered” to optimize our ability to engage the right customers/prospects, with the right conversations, at the right time. Whether it’s a recruiting/onboarding process, talent management/people development, account/territory management, opportunity/deal management, pipeline/forecasting, prospecting,…
Read MoreAccount Management: The Challenges of Incumbency
Account Based Everything is a huge topic these days. Everyone is account focused, they want to grow their relationships, increase penetration and grow revenue. Developing our accounts is a huge opportunity. There’s huge amounts of data outlining the differences in sales time and cost between growing an existing relationship and acquiring net new logos. Growing…
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