Category - Blogs

Concentrating on the positives in your life will give you the attitude to have a good day, a good week, a good year, and great relationships. Focusing on the positives of others will do the same. If you turn on the TV or listen to news on the radio, you must assume that nothing ever …

Developing or Adjusting Your Attitude in Hard Times I have heard many people say “Attitude is everything.” Attitude does determine how one approaches any situation. Attitude is made up of your past experiences and the predominant thoughts in your mind. If our past experiences were negative or always risk averse, our predominant thoughts will have …

In my last post, I talked about why conventional sales strategies that were considered “tried and true” two decades ago are no longer working in today’s environment; they’re more about the seller than the buyer.  Unfortunately, many sales reps still cling to the old ways, despite the fact they are losing business to sales reps …

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 But the author now acknowledges that the original edition of the book is out of date.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 …