What would you expect from Ivy League MBA students when it comes to selling? A while back, I had a really cool privilege to offer a sales coaching session to Harvard MBA students! Harvard’s School of Business created an extensive buyer/seller scenario for their students which culminated in a role play where students each took...Read More

Most of it, anyway, is actually terrible. I write this knowing that it could be confusing since many of you would consider what we do at The Selling Agency as “Sales Training.” Hear me out. When I look back at my years as an Account Executive in multiple organizations, I can recall almost every single...Read More

How often do you face a stalled sale or wilted opportunity after you propose a solution? This is a GIANT bummer because we know how hard it is to get a prospect’s attention. We hustle and grit it out to make the calls, emails, and connections payoff with conversations and meetings. It’s frustrating when prospects...Read More

Are you lagging or leading? Let me share with you a bit of my diagnostic process. When I talk with sales leaders or business owners about their sales teams, I ask, “tell me about their performance?” Their response is usually something along the lines of, “Well, we missed our target last quarter,” or “We’ve had...Read More

Normally, feedback on a stage is a terrible, annoying thing. Audio feedback occurs when a sound loop exists between an audio input and an audio output. That shrill noise is loud and piercing. Performance feedback, however, is a gift. Opportunities to receive feedback on our performance are sometimes designed in our job roles: annual reviews, quarterly...Read More

I remember a funny moment about 10 years ago when a client figuratively slammed the door on me. I had set my sights on this customer as an ideal prospect for my printing solution. I found the right contact, called, emailed, called, emailed, called, called, and one day she answered the phone and said, “Tell...Read More

Whether I’m working with a fresh-faced new seller or a seasoned pro, one thing that almost every seller does is “underprepare” for meetings and calls. Even when they know I’m going to join them, listen in, or attend the meeting with them, they grab a blank notepad and dial or walk into a meeting. I’ve...Read More

This is not a “let’s trash small business discussion.” It’s really more of a love letter to small business a plea for you to change so that you can compete with your online retail competition. Two weeks ago I started the process to try to make and buy custom t-shirts for my volleyball team. I...Read More

I surveyed a sales team recently – prior to a Skills Building session on Pushback, Objections, and Negotiation – and asked them some of the most common obstacles they face in business development. Their answers didn’t surprise me, but one of the things about their answers that I pointed out really made them think –...Read More

NOTE: This is an update to the WHACK-A-MOLE Business Strategy post from several years back. I work with both business owners and their sales teams and individual sellers and I see more WHACK-A-MOLE than ever! Does this title feel ALL too familiar to you? I write this blog as I had an encounter with a...Read More