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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It’s Not About You – #4 Yes, I hate the word Presentation. But at the right time, structured the right way, a killer sales presentation is one of our most powerful weapons. And a killer presentation is a lot more about the prospect and their issues than it is about you and your solution. We’ve
It’s Not About You – #3 We all have certain words that cause a negative visceral reaction when we hear them. Mine include cancer, child abduction and rosemary (that most heinous herb responsible for destroying otherwise fine dishes). I’m sure your words are coming to mind now. In sales, the word I most hate is
As a huge football fan who makes his living leading a sales organization, I am truly intrigued with the news today of the Patriots trading away Randy Moss. I follow the NFL, drive to work listening to Mike and Mike on ESPN Radio and am struggling to remain humble with my fantasy football team at
It’s Not About You – #2 How great a sin is it when a self-absorbed salesperson bores a dream prospect to tears talking about his company and offerings? I’m guessing I’ve been on calls with about 150 different salespeople and have heard the “sales story” botched in countless ways…too long, irrelevant, unclear, wordy, condescending, lacking
They are programmed to say “No.” Most people don’t want to do what we do. Calling people you don’t know and asking them to meet with you isn’t something most folks daydream about doing. I’m not up for a comprehensive series of posts dedicated to proactive telephone coaching, but I would like to throw out
Sales team having too many appointments? Didn’t think so. I hear a lot about the importance of properly qualifying prospects. And I am confused. I’ll admit it right up front; I am probably an extreme contrarian on this topic. Here’s why: if we’ve done our job strategically selecting Target Prospects, then why in the world
When preparing for battle, a critical first step is the strategic selection of targets to attack. Along those lines, how strategic and clearly defined is your Target Prospect List? It sounds like a ridiculous, elementary and unnecessary question. But in my experience, more often than you’d believe, senior and sales management take for granted that
I had no intention of posting today. New to this whole blog deal, I’ve been sketching out my thoughts for a series of posts about the biggest issues facing both my sales team and me. But I can’t get the whole Lebron thing out of my head, and I am still so confused how something
I have strong memories from 1991: Silence of the Lambs freaked me out, George Bush (41) was silencing Sadaam Hussein in my generation’s first exposure to war (viewed on CNN), and I got to attend Super Bowl XXV in Tampa where my beloved NY Giants handed the poor Buffalo Bills the first of four consecutive
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
