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.
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Tags: sales productivity, sales, sales management, selling, sales optomization, Sales quota
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.
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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling
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.
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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales management, sales effectiveness, selling, sales management training, selling skills, Sales quota, leadership
Movin’ The Needle: 77 Selling Days Left in the Year
Posted by
Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, Sep 08, 2010
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.
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Tags: sales management, selling, sales training, business tools
This week, almost everyone from school kids laboring over their well worn essays to those of us gathered around both the real and virtual water coolers will be answering the end-of-summer-question, “What did you do on your vacation?” Since I’m just now returning to Boston after spending most of the summer on the beach studying and writing a couple of business plans, my answer is pretty simple: I spent some time searching for The Elusive Red.
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Tags: sales productivity, sales, selling
In her 1967 hit, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Aretha Franklin takes these Otis Redding lyrics to a new dimension as she blasts out “Re, Re, Re, Respect” in the middle of the song on her way to making this tune a landmark in the feminist movement, and what is often considered to be one of the best songs of the R&B era. I love music-any kind, any genre-from Timberlake to Usher to Eminem, to 40’s Glen Miller and Tommy Dorsey, but Aretha’s song has a special place in my tune-filled head, so it’s not unusual when I’m truly relaxed to find that some deeply hidden player in my sub consciousness suddenly just switches on and plays “RESPECT”.
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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales effectiveness, selling, selling skills
Movin’ the Needle – How Fast to Step on the Gas?
Posted by
Jack Derby, Head Coach on Thu, Jun 17, 2010
Last week I was able to combine visiting one of my most engaging customers, Lake Sunapee Bank in the picture-perfect town of Newport, NH, with talking to my favorite economists, Brenda.
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Tags: sales productivity, Sales Optimization, sales, sales effectiveness, selling, selling skills
Just got back from my almost-daily early morning walk up and down the beach. Today looks like another overcast but pleasant day, but duty calls, and I’m off to the Boston office. Last Sunday, there was fog so thick that it was hard to see the ocean since it was just at that tipping point between fog, heavy mist and light rain-all of which made my daily search for sea glass impossible.
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This column this month is a continuation of the thought process from January’s “Hawks & Doves” discussion that drew a large number of comments. Hopefully, this will do the same since it is meant to be of a “Sales Tips” piece.
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Tags: sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, selling, selling skills, strategic planning
Coyotes & Other Critters
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Tags: sales, sales management, sales management effectiveness, selling, selling skills, strategic planning
