After spending ten weeks on the road in Q1 (mostly doing sessions for sales kickoff meetings), it’s great to be back home. I’ve been looking forward to some office time, catching up with clients, and the chance to finally put together a handful of new engagements. It’s only midday Tuesday and I just wrapped up
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I’m on a simplicity crusade. Why? Because so many under-performers over-complicate the new business development process. Some do it because they honestly don’t know any better – they’ve never really had to hunt for new business or it’s never been modeled for them. They think it’s supposed to be hard and complicated so they make
I know. You’re just happy I didn’t say “bus.” Between the obnoxiously overused “threw him under the bus” and Good to Great’s most famous “getting the right people in the right seats on the bus,” it’s safe to say we’re all tired of the bus! So, in celebration of a fantastic Super Bowl, let’s talk
Last week I announced that I made the leap to return to full-time sales coaching/consulting. I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive response and am incredibly appreciative of all the good wishes and support. So, THANK YOU! In the post I shared that I not only had more fun, but felt I was more effective creating
I just walked from a great job as head of sales where I was well-liked and appreciated. It feels kinda like I opened the door and jumped from a perfectly fine airplane. It seems crazy. When I share the news, many say things like “that takes a lot of courage,” while others offer congratulations. I
There are a lot of under-performing sales teams today. For good reason, senior executives are concerned about sales results and I’m hearing many good questions about appropriate sales talent, sales deployment, sales compensation, sales activity, sales skills. All fair game and stuff that we sales improvement guys love to take on. But as I’ve pulled
There’s been plenty written debunking the Sales 2.0 myth that you don’t need to make proactive telephone calls to prospects. I think we’re all past the failed fantasy that tweeting about our value-creating blog is going to produce the quantity of face to face meetings we need. And let me be clear, I am ALL
One common reason many salespeople fail at new business development is because they’re always “waiting on the company.” Waiting for new marketing materials. Waiting for more training. Waiting for leads. Top-performing hunters don’t wait; they act. They pro-act (my word). They believe like I do that Sales is a Verb and top-performers aren’t waiting around
Guest Post by Mike LaTella Ask anyone what it takes to be successful in sales and you are liable to hear a string of positive character attributes such as outgoing, attractive, funny, persuasive, interesting, and even charismatic. This leads many to believe that the recipe for sales success includes a base of great personality, two
I was wrong. I loved watching syndicated reruns of Happy Days after school. The Fonz had the cool motorcycle, the girls, the leather jacket. But there was one thing he couldn’t say: “I was wrr… I was wron…” He never could get it out. I’ve got plenty of issues, but admitting when I’ve blown it
Our executive team attended Verne Harnish’s Gazelles Fortune Growth Summit this week. It’s a few days of drinking from the fire hose, listening to some of today’s best business minds and hottest authors. As usual, Verne – aka The Growth Guy, delivered an outstanding lineup of speakers and we left the Summit energized to implement
Sometimes the solution to our sales problem is so simple that we can’t see it. I am pretty sure that this is one of those cases. What We Want We (sellers and sales leaders) ALL crave a full, healthy (fat), balanced, moving pipeline of sales opportunities. What We Typically Do Unfortunately, most of us in
Sales Friends, I get it. We want to be liked. We want to be seen as responsive. We want to show customers that we care and that we listen and that we can follow instructions… All of those things are wonderful. But there’s just one little problem: very often defaulting to our prospect’s (or their
This is Trevor. He’s the senior executive of a company he founded in the UK. He’s also an amazing human being. I think it is fair to say that after the few days we just spent together at our Supercharge Your Sales Leadership event in Atlanta, our relationship crossed from client-coach to friends. The way
