Effective selling is the result of strategic choices and operational systems, not sales efforts alone. Having a great sales force starts with sound business choices and creating operations around those choices. IDEA #1: McDonald’s didn’t become the largest hamburger chain…
I have a very important question to ask you. It is a question everyone of your prospects and customers asks when they see your caller ID show up on their phone, when you call for an appointment or when you…
“Hope is not a strategy” is a rant from almost every sales manager. Rick Page even wrote a book about it. Yes, hope is a strategy. The idea that hope is not a strategy is killing your sales results and…
Recently I’ve been working with more and more businesses where sales are cratering. Business itself seems to be faltering. Whether its from a dysfunctional government or the uncertainty of the business climate increasing profitable sales seems to be harder than…
I don’t normally use this site to talk about myself so I hope you’ll bear with me because there are some ideas here that will increase your sales and your effectiveness if you lead salespeople. I spent the better part…
Every year CSO Insights publishes the largest study of sales compensation and trends in the US. The report is 37 pages long. We can learn a lot from it. Below are some of the key points on firms under $50…
Today almost every business conversation seems to start with how much things have changed. Selling is harder. Business is harder. Open any book and the first half seems to be filled with endless reasons competition is harder, whether it is…
“We must grow our revenue” is what every business owner is telling me these days. An annual survey of hundreds of CEOs places top-line growth as their number one priority for the past 5 years. That is sales folks –…
Today I was talking to a salesperson about how they get past challenging gatekeepers. He told me that he flicks a stack of index cards against his wrist to make a helicopter sound and tells the gatekeeper, “look I’m about…
We hear a lot about sales being a part of a “Wow” experience. That if we create great customer service and be memorable our clients will be loyal, buy more from us, and our sales will improve. I wonder if…