So with just 27 more selling days left in the year, and you sitting there today frustrated that you still have not been able to break through to the key decision maker at your prospect, the purpose of this little blog series is to provide you with a tip a day. At this time of year, just leaving more voicemails and sending the same old emails is merely following of The Strategy of Hope. Not a good strategy to follow at anytime and certainly not now.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling
With 28 more days in the year to actually close deals, if you’re having trouble getting to Mr/Ms Decision Maker, take a hard look at the messaging that you’ve been using. Think about all of those voicemails, emails, and marketing messages that you’ve been hitting the Decision Maker with, and ask yourself the simple, objective question of … “So What?” If you were sitting in their seat, is the messaging that you’re hearing definitive in terms of the actual value that your product or service is going to provide them when they buy? Or is it just a list of cuter, quicker, smaller, cheaper features.
Tags: sales productivity, sales, sales management, selling, sales optomization, Sales quota
Today, there are 29 more days in the year in which we could close orders that are in our pipelines. Given typical sales cycles and the normal B2B complex selling processes, it’s almost impossible to believe that anything now that’s near the top of our funnels is going to move quickly downstream through the myriad of decision makers and signoffs so that it’s going to close before December 31st. So, right now, we’re talking about stuff in the narrow end of the funnel, typically in the stages that follow sending your proposals out: in some form of negotiation or in the seemingly black hole of “getting sign offs”.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness
Just back from an early morning walk on the beach. Love to get out there on the non-snow weekends just after the sun has come up, smell the ocean, figure out what’s changed on the beach from the tides the night before and walk the entire length of the beach picking up the plastic sea trash. Gives me something do, justifies the walk and keeps me green-friendly something I’m not in my day-to-day business life.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling
Tags: sales productivity, sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales tools, sales management training, sales training, business tools, business planning, The Competitive Edge, november
It’s bad enough that we need to listen to the politicians attack one another and tell us all of the negatives that their opponents are doing/have done. What I don’t want to hear is whining and complaining from underperforming salespeople in the 4th quarter about “how tough it is out there”, or that “our prices are too high”.
Tags: sales productivity, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, improved sales management, Sales quota
Back in Vermont for the long weekend and find myself-as usual-trying to balance my time with the seasonal rhythms of the long list of “Things to Do Before The Snow” hanging in the workshop with the necessity of taking quiet time to do real work that just can’t be squeezed into the frentic workweek. No complaints here since it is what it is, and, quite frankly, I enjoy the pace plus I have the privilige of working and playing in the mountains of Vermont and on the beach in NH. By the way, an interesting factoid is that Vermont used to be seaside property-500 million years ago-and the acclaimed Vermont marble is, in fact, created from miles of compacted seashells squeezed up from sea floor as the continents pushed toward one another over those millenia.
Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling, sales management training, selling skills, Sales quota, leadership
1. Take this Weekend
Tags: sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, sales effectiveness, sales management training, sales training, business planning, business coaching, sales optimication
Movin’ The Needle: 77 Selling Days Left in the Year
The seasonal break of summer, and all of the years of going back to school in September always make me approach these four months not as the month of September, the end of the quarter and then Q4, but as the four month quarter. Nothing really changes except the measurement stick of Q3-critical only for quota benchmarking, but in the practicality of day-to-day, month-to-month selling, this four month period, if properly planned-can become the most rewarding of the year. All it takes is just a bit of short term planning.
Tags: sales management, selling, sales training, business tools
It’s been a great summer. Lots of work; lots of time off and a great opportunity to plan ahead a bit for the upcoming crazy season of September through the rest of the year.
Tags: sales management, sales management effectiveness, management, leadership, strategic planning