I have always liked the fishing metaphor for sales. There is vast opportunity, but spending time in the wrong places yields poor results. “Most of the world is covered by water. A fisherman’s job is simple: Pick out the best parts.” –Charles Waterman A rare occurrence happened the other day.
Whether you are a President, Sales Leader or Sales Rep, the ability to grow revenue is typically a top priority. Even if a company or region is growing, the question is what is the revenue potential for that defined area and how would you go about maximizing that potential? This…
As someone trained in Lean Six Sigma, I see a lot of content focused on the concept of “Lean”. Eric Ries has had success with “The Lean Startup” and we are proponents of the concept of a Minimum Viable Product, which we used with the launch of our INK Sales…
As a big proponent of Verne Harnish’s Rockefeller Habits http://www.gazellessystems.com/Gazelles-Systems-Canada , I believe that this statement from Verne applies in all areas of business; especially sales. I had the opportunity to sit down with a successful business owner the other day and he brought some interesting insights to…
We spend a lot of time talking with Executives and Sales Leaders about their Sales related priorities and current challenges. An area of opportunity that I would put forward as low hanging fruit is doing comprehensive Win/Loss Analysis on an ongoing basis. The information is extremely valuable and helps you…
An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. Jack Welch How do you take your sales successes and replicate them across the organization? According to Miller Heiman’s latest report; only a small percentage of companies actually do this; the ones…
Sir Anthony Hopkins is one of the most respected and successful actors in the world. I was reading an article about him the other day and I was struck by his process for preparing for a play or a movie. He stated that he always reads his lines out loud…
As we meet with various sales leaders and salespeople, we are finding a common theme emerging. Many salespeople are presenting their “solution” to the client far too early in the sales process. As we dig into the reasons for this behavior we have uncovered some consistent explanations as to why Premature Selling…
Our blog from a few weeks ago was on the topic of preparation before making an initial call on a suspect. We stopped at preparing your pitch. To continue forward, what are some important elements to consider or utilize as you prepare to pitch. As a starting point, lets begin…
Result: Something that happens as a consequence; outcome. We need more sales, more profitable sales, more of “this type” of sales etc. The common theme is that organizations know the consequence and outcome that they want to achieve. As with any outcome, it is equally important to understand the activities…