In sales, as in life, there will be times when you encounter people who throw up (unconscious) barriers or resistance even when your intent is to be helpful – to sell them something that could dramatically increase their business results or to improve their personal condition.
Read moreCEOs & Sales Leaders! Low Proposal Win Rate?
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been coaching and mentoring several sales teams on how to navigate to power and involve true decision makers in their conversations – so that they’ll win significantly more business.
What Gets Measured Gets Done. Not Quite…
If you’ve spent any time working in sales, you’ll no doubt have heard, “What gets measured gets done” (variously attributed to W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker, and Rheticus).
Read moreCEOs & Sales Leaders! Do Your Customers Make Your Salespeople Play FETCH?
This is a picture of one of my dogs, Luke. Unfortunately, he passed away far too young for such an active and handsome fella.
Read moreCEO's & Sales Leaders! Can You Teach Curiosity to Salespeople?
Over the years, I’ve often heard CEOs and sales leaders lament that they wish that their salespeople were more curious. Perhaps you wish that, too?
Read more4 Reasons Why Companies Struggle to Grow Sales, Starting with the CEO...
So many businesses struggle to generate enough new sales to take their growth to the next level…and it doesn’t have to be this way.
Throughout my career, first as an inside sales rep (SDR), new business field sales rep, sales leader, executive and finally as a consultant and advisor, I’ve seen the same issues at nearly every company I’ve worked at and consulted with, small or large.
Read moreCEO's to Salespeople: How to Answer, "So, What Is It You Do?"
So, you’ve been let loose at a conference or are manning your company’s stand at an exhibition.
You’re looking sharp. Hair recently cut, shoes polished or heels just high enough and your favourite suit or outfit makes you shine with confidence. You look every inch the successful salesperson, head of sales or CEO.
That is until someone walks onto your stand or starts making small talk with you in the line up for the buffet and innocuously asks, “So, what is it that you do?”
Read moreDoes Your Job Title Make People WANT to Respond?
If your salespeople are involved in prospecting for new business and they use email as part of their outreach to new contacts, you may want to take a close look at their email signatures – specifically their job title.
Does their job title establish peer to peer credibility with the person you want them to speak or meet with, or does it, like most of the sales teams I work with, sabotage their prospecting effectiveness and results?
Read moreSales Leaders! Are YOUR Limiting Beliefs Affecting Your Sales Team?
You may have heard from me before that “words have power”.
So do the stories that you tell yourself habitually.
Recently, I worked with a sales leader and his team on a project to improve their positioning and messaging so that they sounded and acted in a competitively distinct manner to their competition.
Read moreInside Sales Leaders! STOP Calling Potential Customers TARGETS
Recently, I watched a video delivered by an inside sales expert. He teaches a LOT of leading-edge content that will be creating a great deal of value for his customers.
BUT, and I use the word intentionally, I believe he is unconsciously sabotaging the results that his SDRs and potential customers will be getting because of the words he uses to describe potential customers – aka “targets.”
Read moreCEOs and Sales Leaders, How Is Your Offering Different?
Last week, I wrote an article – CEO! Sales Are Struggling Because of YOU! – on why salespeople often struggle to discover and create customer value because of the way YOU talk about your products, services and solutions – what they are vs. what they do specifically for your customers.
Read moreCEO, Sales Are Struggling Because of YOU!
In the course of my sales growth advisory, training and coaching engagements over the last ten years, it’s become apparent to me that much of the responsibility for sales organizations that struggle lies at the feet of the company’s most important salesperson: you – the CEO.
Read moreHow to Get Meetings With C-Level Executives
Many of my clients hire me because they want more meetings or @bats.
Those with a more strategic orientation choose to work with me because they want to execute a competitively distinct prospecting and selling motion that starts top-down – with the CEO. They do this because they want more quality pipeline, faster sales cycles, bigger deals and more wins.
Read moreSales Leaders! Competition or Status Quo?
Perhaps your sales team isn’t struggling to get enough appointments. If so, you’re one of the fortunate ones.
And, are they winning enough opportunities to hit their quota and for you to hit your number?
If you’re losing opportunities to competition, or your potential customer decides to stick with what they already have after speaking with your salespeople, then competition and status quo aren’t your challenge.
Read moreCommon Sales Playbook Errors
Sales playbooks are a common tool used in the onboarding of new sales hires. The intent behind them is sound – to accelerate the time to productivity of new sales hires so that they and the hiring company are successful. Seems to be an obvious win/win.
Read moreHow to Increase Sales Success in 2-Steps
If you’re struggling to sell in the sales/martech landscape, you’re not alone. But if you don’t take deliberate and massive action to hold and gain more ground in this industry, you won’t be around for much longer.
Many previously successful sales leaders and salespeople are struggling to sell in a fiercely competitive market characterized by heavy discounting by incumbents, companies big enough to buy share and new entrants with exciting new offerings. And potential customers who are not responding to prospecting messages.
Read moreDoes Your Sales Team Engage in "Random Acts of Prospecting?"
CEOs and Sales Leaders what are you doing to make sure that prospecting is a team sport in your company, involving all your reps, and not just a few who do it whenever they “feel” like it?
Working with organizations around the world I see this over and over again. Indeed, I like to refer to this lack of process around finding new business as random acts of prospecting.
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