Back in 1988, Stephen Covey wrote his best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People which was a global phenomenon in the self-help genre selling over 25 million copies. Covey’s introspective advice struck a nerve with people who wanted to master success in their personal and business lives. The lessons he laid out were...Read More
Back to School. Depending on your age and child rearing status, these three words may be cheers to your ears or bring tears to your eyes. Me, I’m slightly more of the “tears” camp as I feel the dread of all the homework, projects, and general busy-ness of the school year creep up on me...Read More
You might be surprised to know where I find inspiration for these blog posts. Or, maybe not, considering you’re here. I bring a lot of everyday life into training and coaching conversations in sales. I find that general business jargon and “sales speak” make people want to take a nap or mentally check out. Telling...Read More
As sellers, aren’t we always looking for an easier way to talk to buyers? We’re looking for easier conversations. Looking for ways to relate and be relevant to our customers. We’re trying to find ways to make people WANT to listen to us amongst the crowded field of our competition and the thousands of messages...Read More
Many sales people and business owners tell me “networking” is how they fill their pipeline with leads and opportunities. And rarely, do I ever believe them. I do believe networking can lead to opportunities, but more often than not, “networking” simply fills up their calendar and gives them the feeling that they’re accomplishing something. They...Read More
What’s the easiest thing you’ve ever sold? What product was a home run for you? For me, the easiest thing I’ve ever sold is Girl Scout Cookies. And by “me”, I mean, my daughter, and her troop. I’m just the driver and logistics support for the outfit. Maybe this isn’t exactly a subjective comparison to...Read More
You have a sales team or maybe you’ve been plugging away at your own sales efforts for a while now. How do you know how you’re doing? Other than hitting your sales goals . . . or not, how do you measure the health of your sales program? Sales results are one indication of how...Read More
We’ve descended into total “ball” season, folks: football, baseball, the other “football” affectionately known as soccer, and even volleyball. In our house with two sporty kids, right now we’re either playing a game, practicing for a game, watching a game, or talking about a game. I’m writing this post after my daughter’s volleyball practice tonight...Read More
Several months back I was sitting in on a sales meeting with a new client, observing her sales team, what she asked of them and what they reported. When asked about the progress on meeting with a particular prospect, one sales rep admitted, with frustration, “I don’t know what his problem is. I just haven’t...Read More
In the previous post, we took a hard look at building a more flexible sales process that is completely centered around your customer starting with Assessing Your Features From Your Customers’ Perspective. This practice helps you build your selling messages around the variable points that are truly meaningful to your customers. But wait! There’s More!...Read More
