A few things happened to me this week that remind me how long It can take for new sales techniques to be adopted – and become a habit with sales people. I was discussing a situation with one of my sales consultant friends where they are seeing a sales force where solution selling is still [...]
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Huh? What did you Say?
The central point behind Jill Konrath’s second best selling sales book, SNAP Selling, is that buyers are now super-frazzled individuals. Sales people need to realize this and adapt their approach accordingly. No more long rambling emails or voice mails. But here’s something I am noticing more-and-more these days: it’s not only prospects that are super-frazzled [...]
Are you into Mastery?
Just been listening to Daniel Pink’s book Drive. Drive is about what motivates us. One of the key motivators Pink talks about is the pursuit of mastery. Of course that made me think about mastery in sales. Pink describes research about how people view intelligence. The research found that people fall into two groups: one [...]
The Social Graph is Your Friend(s)
Mark Zuckerberg (you know the movie star) popularized the term the “social graph” to give a visual representation to the way we are all connected socially (and to promote his movie.) The social graph represents the relationships between us as lines and us as the nodes (see the photo.) Why does this concept matter to [...]
Wagons Ho!
“There’s a great opportunity here for us. This new product of ours is going to grow our revenue significantly in 2010.” I’m watching a situation in one of our clients which I’ve seen many times before. A CEO has the vision for a new product. The senior executives agree that there’s an opportunity here to [...]
Is Your Sales Force Rubbish?
As the world economy heads unceasingly down how will CEO’s and VPs of sales know if their sales force is struggling because of the economy, their product or because, well, their sales team is “rubbish” (or excellent)? Time and time again I see the same “dance” where companies hire sales people or VPs of sales, [...]
No Need to Close the Gap between Sales and Marketing
In a “Sales 2.0 world” sales and marketing are the same thing. I’m a bit weird in that during my career I’ve spent several years in both marketing and sales (and studied marketing at Wharton but now “eat and drink” sales). My take away from being on both sides of the departmental divide is that [...]
Flip Your Focus
What can I do differently this year to bring my sales to the next level?One pattern I’ve noticed from interacting with business and sales people over my last 15 years in sales is that they tend to be better at the end of the sales cycle than at the beginning. Most of the people I [...]
Sales is a Numbers Game
Sales is a profession rife with cliches. One of the most popular is “sales is a numbers game” The dangerous part about this expression is how it gets used: “we don’t need to be smart [about our prospecting]…it’s just a numbers game” This is where I disagree. Sure prospecting is a numbers game but the [...]
We need a Rock Star
Why do so many companies feel they need to hire “rock star” sales people? I hear this quite often when companies are hiring sales people. What does it really mean? The description the companies give usually goes like this: • Must have made, or exceeded quota, for the last five years • Must have a [...]
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