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…
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…
Value Proposition is a term like Partner that is both over used and misunderstood in the business world today. I have borrowed a definition that I learned at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management that I have used for 15 years and shapes work we do in this area. In…
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…
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…
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…