01
2015
Bridging the Gap between Your Sales Message and Your Buyer
Probably one of the most frustrating issues facing sales people today is being able to deliver a compelling sales message that reaches the right audience with the right message. Oftentimes sales people are presented with the “Corporate Sales Message” that was created by someone in the Marketing Department, and chances are the person who created that message never had a real one-to-one conversation with a…
07
2014
Are you taking advantage of the Tribal Knowledge within your organization and capitalizing on it?
It is always interesting to me that companies are constantly looking outside of their organizations for the panacea to solve whatever problem they have, instead of looking inward and taking advantage of what they already know. Specifically, in sales organizations there is a ton of experience and “tribal knowledge” that exists around: who your best target market and prospects are, what is the best way…
16
2013
Sales Enablement brings about Sales & Marketing Alignment
I just finished a great research brief “Sales Enablement: Fulfilling the Last Frontier of Marketing-Sales Alignment”, from Peter Ostrow and Trip Kucera of the Aberdeen Group. In it they make some excellent points around the value of having a Sales Enablement process to better align Marketing and Sales. The relationship between B2B marketing and sales teams is more than just about leads and lead management….
06
2013
Do You Have a Repeatable, Sustainable Profile for Success?
I was having a discussion with a good friend of mine recently and we were talking about how most organizations don’t have a repeatable, sustainable profile for how they achieve success. What we were referring to was the need for organizations to be able to have a clear understanding of how they are successful in winning business. For many organizations, they can give you an…
05
2013
Does your organization have a “Sales Culture”?
I had a discussion recently with one of the top business coaches in the country, Brian Cork (www.brianthebusinesscoach.com), and we were talking about selling to companies that have a sales culture. That got me to thinking about that term “Sales Culture” and what it meant. So, I Googled it and what I found was mostly blogs and promotions for sales training to help organizations implement…
08
2013
Don’t Talk About Products, Instead Talk About Solutions!
In thinking about creating my latest blog, one of the things that came to mind was a credo that I actually have posted on my wall above my desk. The credo that I created goes like this: Think the way your Customer Thinks Look at yourself through your Customers’ Eyes Listen to yourself through your Customers’ Ears Speak in terms of what Matters to Them…
14
2012
Excuses why now isn’t a good time to sell
First, allow me to apologize for the time lapse since my last post, I don’t want to bore you with excuses, it’s simply a matter of time and priorities. I recently joined the Sales Management Association that is headquartered here in Atlanta. I attended my first user group meeting last week and I had the opportunity to meet some really great people and am so…
20
2012
Which is more Important, Sales Effectiveness or Sales Efficiency?
Make no mistake about it, LinkedIn discussions often times provide some great insights and information. Take the discussion that Alex Gammelgard recently posted in the Sales Enablement Gurus group, around sales effectiveness versus sales efficiency. Her article is based around the Gartner Group article on “How to Analyze Your Sales Processes on Efficiency Versus Effectiveness, August 15, 2012.” I would like to quote some excerpts…
30
2012
4 ways to turbo-charge your sales!
According to a CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization Report, some 41 percent of sales people are failing to hit their sales quotas while overall revenue attainment dropped from 88.2 percent to 85.9 percent. If your company is experiencing difficulties in winning new business, here are a few ideas to transform your sales performance. Reduce new hire ramp-up time The CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization Report also…
11
2012The Top-20 challenges salespeople face
Sales directors and managers spend much of their time thinking about what types of advice, tools and support they can give to their teams in order to improve productivity and performance. That got me thinking. To provide the most effective support for salespeople, you first need a detailed understanding of what challenges, problems and issues they face on a regular basis. So I made a…