When is the last time a stranger surprised you? Made you stop in your tracks, jerked you out of your “zone” and piqued your interest? Every once in a GREAT while, I get a cold call from a sales pro that really makes me stop and listen for at least the first minute. The other...Read More

I just came back from a phenomenal sales conference with my peer group, the Women Sales Pros. We have a public half-day conference and then two days of our private group learning and growing through shared expertise. It was my privilege to be tapped for a first-time session of “Cold Call Coaching” along with another...Read More

By the time a business hires me to assist with the sales program, they’re pretty frustrated. They’ve had sales growth and sales success but can’t seem to replicate or scale those efforts with sales hires. If this feels painfully familiar, you’re not alone. But it doesn’t mean you’re in good company because it’s a miserable...Read More

As we are wishing for the cool weather of Pumpkin Spice Season (formerly called “fall” and “fourth quarter”), many of you are pushing hard to close out the year’s sales and have one eye on planning for next year too. For Sales Directors and Business Owners, this is that time when you start thinking of...Read More

What’s your focus for improved sales results this year? Cleaning up my office this week and the biggest stack of papers on my desk is my “Session Notes” pile. It’s the colorful printouts of PowerPoint decks and session worksheets that are scribbled on in blue, purple, hot pink, and aqua (I love my colored sharpie...Read More

Putting together a speech for an upcoming keynote and looking for insights about growth and learning, I ran across a quote and the work of Joe Dispenza that describes WHY it’s so hard to learn as an adult: “Psychologists tell us that by the time we’re in our mid-30s, our identity or personality will be...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

We talk quite a bit about asking questions in the sales process. Ask better questions. Don’t assume. Listen. Don’t “tell”. And there is one more super-fantastic way “questions” can be the MVP of your sales game. Ask questions about your prospect’s questions. What? I started paying attention to this a few years ago. As a...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

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