Renowned sales expert Neil Rackham wrote what many still consider to be the definitive guide to sales, SPIN Selling. First published in 1988, this book was the “sales bible” for two decades. But the author now acknowledges that the original edition of the book is out of date. Many of the techniques it taught no …
If the rear wheel of your customer’s bike is the driving force, or the business reasons, behind why your customer buys (as we discussed in Part 1), then the front wheel is the one that determines the direction in which he will go – whether he buys from you or from someone else. Here, personal …
Between 2010 and 2013, the greatest emphasis of sales force change was in the area of compensation and quota setting. That’s according to Mark Donnolo, founder of The SalesGlobe, a sales consulting group in Atlanta. During those two years, in over 100 large companies that participated in his research, almost every vice president of …
We’ve all heard the Golden Rule of Business: “He who has the gold makes the rules.” That’s especially true in sales! Your customers have the gold you’re after, so you must play by their rules. To do so, you must also apply the Platinum Rule: “Do unto others as they would have you do to …
Many sales managers have become frustrated with sales training programs and have largely given up on pursuing training for their reps. They have paid thousands of dollars for training in the past and received little or no return on that investment. Unfortunately, instead of trying to find the root causes behind why the training didn’t …
Many organizations unwittingly suffer from a bad habit that greatly diminishes sales performance: sales managers who spend too much of their time trying to manage a sales rep’s outcomes. You may ask, “Well, isn’t that a sales manager’s job?” The answer is “no.” A rep’s outcomes are impossible to manage. It’s like a football …
As a business owner or VP of Sales, have you been frustrated with your CRM utilization or forecast accuracy? You are not alone. Let’s talk about one reason you may not be getting the results you wanted. The advent of Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) has made it possible for sales departments to develop …
Problems are a normal part of doing business. If you do not have any problems with customers now, you will in the future. Someone in their organization, or yours, will eventually create one. How your people handle it when the time comes can make or break your relationship with them. How do your sales …
At sales meetings, I like to hand out Double Stuff Oreos and watch people enjoy them. At least half the group wants to know where the milk is! I enjoy seeing how people eat them. Some eat them whole, and others pull them apart and eat the cream first. After they have enjoyed their cookies, …
In this post, we discussed how to identify the different types of buyers in a complex sale, and how to use the questions they ask to pinpoint what their buying concerns are. Understanding each type of buyer’s decision criteria is key to winning the business. This can be challenging, even if everyone involved is a …
