Sales 2.0

Build a time fortress

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Build a fortress around your prospecting time.

If you want to be a top sales person, this may be the single most important piece of advice I can give you.

In my last post I was talking about goals. You need goals to know where you want to go. You need goals for this week to know where you want to be at the end of this month. You need monthly goals to know where you want to be at the end of the year. And yearly goals to have a life you are happy with.

Blocking out time on your calendar is where the rubber hits the road. [Read more…]

What’s the point?

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What’s the point?

The point is a good thing to know before you set out on an epic journey. And let’s face it most sales jobs are epic journeys. They’re not easy and they go on for a long time. There’s a ton of sweat and some tears involved in most of them. Epic!

I’m going to be writing approximately ten posts next on how to prepare for such an epic journey. [Read more…]

Be Agile

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I’m going to be writing about survival. Sales survival.

How to do you keep your job if you’re in a new sales position or how do you keep afloat if you’ve been given one of those “greenfield” opportunities (aka you have no relationships in the market)?

If you’re selling in the tech sector you may well have heard of (or even be selling) “Agile development”. Agile is a smart way of saying “don’t overrate how smart you are”. [Read more…]

How to survive a new sales gig

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Maybe it’s just me, but I suspect not.

Have you experienced this in your sales career? You get to “take charge” of a new “greenfield” territory for your company? Or maybe you just started a new sales job.

Your bosses sense bountiful opportunity. There’s a whole new part of the country (or new industry) that no other rep is covering. Those suspects sure must be waiting to hear about your glorious products and services. [Read more…]

Do you challenge your prospects?

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I just finished reading The Challenger Sale. (I know, a bit late but finally done.)

I have to go back and find where they decided to name the type of sales person that is most successful these days “challenger”. I suspect there was some good debate on that name. The prospecting approach recommended in the book could probably better be called “insightful” or “insight-based” or something like that. [Read more…]

It’s about the qualified leads

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I think it’s all about qualified leads. What do you think?

So I’ve tried most forms of sales and marketing techniques now. (I’m getting old/older!) But whichever way I slice it, it all comes back to the revenue bottleneck being qualified leads.

Notice I said “qualified leads” not “leads”. “Leads” are not that useful. [Read more…]