Category - Sales

During a sales call or demo, it is easy to be very product-focused.  After all, the product is what you’re there to talk about, right? In my last post, I talked about why focusing on your product or service during a sales call is the #1 mistake you can make.  Your customer wants your conversations …

There are two forces that drive a customer’s buying decision: business reasons and personal motives. A successful sale depends on your ability to accurately identify the reason your customer has for buying and what he’s looking for in a vendor. If you fall short in either area, you are likely to lose the sale. To …

During a sales call or demo, it is easy to be very product-focused.  After all, the product is what you’re there to talk about, right? As sales reps, we tend to focus on the product because that’s where our comfort zone is.  We talk about our products every day.  We know them inside and out. …

According to a 2015 Salesforce.com study, 82% of sellers are out of sync with their customers.  In my experience, the most probable cause of this is that there are a lot of salespeople who are using outdated sales techniques based on an approach to selling that does not work in today’s environment. Until the 1990s, …

Steven M Covey in the book The Speed of Trust states that companies that have high trust outperform low trust companies by as much as 286%. To get that level of performance, the employees are fully engaged. What does trust have to do with engagement? Everything! Trust is the foundation from which everyone builds relationships. According …

Goal setting is one of the most powerful tools and methodologies to improve engagement – engagement of sales people and engagement of employees. Billy Cox writes in the All Star Sales Book: Get in the Game, Boost Your Number and Earn the Big Bucks  “Why do such a small percentage of people reach the elite performer …

As you begin 2017 do you believe your team is fully committed? Is your leadership team all in? Are your sales reps all in? Is your customer support team and operations team all in? Employee engagement and team dysfunctionality are two areas that suck the life out of a leader. The leader knows that his/her …

You’ve just finished your team’s big sales training. You brought all the bells and the whistles. You handed out shiny folders of full-color pages of information and utilized a flashy presentation. Now you’re waiting to see the “aha” moment make its appearance – when everything that you have so painstakingly presented comes together and launches …

As a boss, is being right your first priority? Does being right improve employee engagement?   Being Right vs  Building the Right Relationship  I took my daughter target shooting and witnessed an interesting scenario that we have reflected on multiple times. A young man shot a signal flare from a flare gun at the 100 …

My last blog I wrote on how to improve engagement by assessing your people based upon how well they fit the organization: Do they Get it? Do they Want it? and Do they have the Capacity to peform the job? Here is a great blog by Jeff Whittle on explaining the cultural issue in more …