There is an old saying, “If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.” In the world of complex sales (the stakes are high), preparation is foundational to every phase of your sales process. I would argue it is most critical during the initial phase or what we call…
Recently I was chatting with a colleague who was down in dumps about his sales team’s inability to properly forecast the opportunities in the sales pipeline. “We have a large number of opportunities at the top of the funnel and nothing that is ready to close.” When…
I am a firm believer in the above statement. It has application to all areas of life; fitness, learning, relationships, your golf game ;-)….but of course in this context, I’m relating it to sales success. As I continuously speak with accomplished executives, sales leaders and business owners, I have found…
To be certain, there are Sales Leaders that are not a cultural fit or do not have the requisite skills to accomplish the mission and should be replaced. What I am referencing as a point of discussion and debate is the “quick fix” that organizations may arrive at when Sales…
Ask any CEO, VP of Sales or Sales Manager…”If you could change just one thing about your sales team, what would it be?” Almost without exception, their response will be…”I want the team to make calls at the executive level!” If this is what all sales leaders want, then why…
In recent discussions with many high performing B2B sales leaders, I have asked them a simple question; “What area of sales do they find has changed the most in the past few years?” Many of the answers are quite predictable: The client is more aware of viable alternative solutions. Clients…
Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse some more. The phrase “Will it play in Peoria?” has been around for over 100 years. Derived from Horatio Alger’s book, Five Hundred Dollars, the phrase evolved into its current form after being repeated often by Groucho Marx. It signifies that if a show is successful…
The term Value Proposition may be the most over used and misunderstood business phrase since Partner. Organizations often use Value to describe generic, unproven statements about their product or service that could also describe any of their competitors. If you are curious about how your organization views and is aligned…
As Corporations are moving further away from formal Sales Training, Leaders are forced to hire “job ready” or “just add water” candidates. The implication is that Sales Leaders often become responsible for training new hires on their Sales Process, Tools and how the organization differentiates and creates value. Leaders…