It's not easy to reach your goals, hit your targets, and make your quota. Many B2B sales organizations and salespeople believe that selling is more difficult now than in the past, with contacts abandoning conversations early in the process, clients requiring longer sales ...
Of all the ways to lose a deal, the most reliable is to project a self-orientation. When your client feels that your ...
There are four metrics we commonly track in sales to measure progress toward our goals: number of opportunities, average ...
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for ...
Welcome to the first newsletter of 2022. If you are a sales leader, a sales manager, a salesperson, or in some other role ...
Can you put a dollar value on switching from an ineffective (or even absent) sales process to an effective one? According to ...
At the beginning of a new year, many people make resolutions and set new goals for themselves. Everyone starts with good ...
For many years, I have borrowed a practice from Chris Brogan: theming each year by using three words to provide clarity and ...
The 10 Most Common Sales Mistakes Outdated Sales Approaches: There is nothing more harmful to your sales results than ...
One reason sales organizations fail to reach their goals is because they lack opportunities. Sure, their pipeline meetings ...
Your experience on earth is largely about how you frame things that occur around you. How you choose to interpret and ...
It's not uncommon to sacrifice precise accuracy when you communicate: we sometimes use similar but distinct words as if they ...
There are only two reasons a salesperson or sales force might have poor sales results. Improving these results requires that ...
There's no earthly way of knowing Which direction they are going! There's no knowing where they're rowing, Or which way the ...
Learning Like Napoleon When Napoleon was given command of the Italian Army, he was 26 years old. He requested every book on ...
Let me kick you a scenario: Your sales team is struggling. Your average close rate is down, morale is low, and you're out of ...
Every great sales force is built on a positive culture of accountability. Many common sales problems, such as too few ...
Your prospective client agreeing to a meeting is a gift, one you should never take for granted. Agreeing to a meeting means ...
There are things we value enough to find them precious (like that one ring), making them dear to us, if only in some ...
As we wrap up a second pandemic year and begin a third one, it's worth a moment or two to reflect on the world in which we ...
I hope that 2021 was your best year ever, despite the pandemic and all the challenges that came with it. It's important to ...
We live in a Universe that seems to impose a law of cause and effect: results, both negative and positive, are always ...
This is my last Sunday Newsletter of 2021.
The subject line of the email asked a grammatically dubious question: "Should I speak to, Jim?" The ploy is designed to get ...
Traditionally, the legacy model’s value proposition was found in the company's products, services, or "solution" (a word I ...
“If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less.” –General Eric Shinseki
Only 2% of cold calls are successful. That's a bleak figure, even for the most optimistic of sales professionals. When it ...
One my favorite thinkers and writers is Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I often re-read his books, always learning something new or ...
One holdover from the linear sales process proposed by the legacy approaches to sales is a tendency to put our own agenda ...
There is a certain type of training that does nothing to improve a sales organization's results. We call it “check box” ...
Here in Columbus, you are required to support the Ohio State Buckeyes football team, for the same reason being born in Rome ...
Everything good that ever happens is the result of meeting a stranger. Your significant other was once a stranger, as was ...
We've all been on the receiving end of a bad sales call. Stilted language, too-pushy pacing, or even simply a product or ...
Selling isn't easy. It comes with a set of challenges that you must address effectively to reach your goals. What follows ...
Why do we believe problems and pain drive clients to change? One reason is that we don't recognize how long decision-makers ...
The most important goal that sales organization, sales managers, and salespeople should pursue is effectiveness: the degree ...
No matter what your sales leader or sales manager thinks of your performance, one person’s opinion trumps anything they say. ...
You might believe it impossible to miss your 2022 sales goals and targets before the year has even started, but it’s ...
Some of the books that line my shelves are a mystery—I have no idea where or when I acquired them, or perhaps how they found ...
Finding decent sales training is easy. But finding the best sales training is challenging… unless you know exactly what ...
If you work in sales long enough, at some point you'll encounter a challenge so wide-ranging that you’ll think you should ...
The need for two (or maybe three) pipelines is not well-recognized by either sales leaders or salespeople, especially those ...
Imagine you are struggling to produce some result in your life or your business. You recognize that you need help from ...
There is a fundamental, though uncomfortable, truth about success in sales: selling is not something you do to someone; it's ...
There is a perennial, and mostly erroneous, conversation about the alignment of sales and marketing. The two functions may ...
The Universe can be difficult to navigate: as Paul Simon put it, “the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip slidin’ ...
When done right, a sales strategy is the driving force that keeps your sales team on track for success.
One of the more difficult things for sales managers to do well is forecasting their quarterly revenue, an exercise only ...
The concept of Level 4 value creation helps salespeople recognize what prospects and clients need from them, even if they ...
Even the best salespeople can fall into the trap of overcomplicating the process of finding a qualified lead for your sales ...
The salesperson had said all that was necessary, but because he was nervous, he continued to keep talking. He was trying to ...
Let’s try an experiment: stop reading, open your Instagram feed, and write down the topics of the first ten sponsored posts. ...
The Swiss Army Knife was one of the coolest things you could have in middle school. Who wouldn't want a knife, a small saw, ...
Some of your best prospective clients are already working with one of your competitors. They are not (yet) compelled to ...
Let’s bust a myth about direct sales. Direct selling is often seen as a more complicated sales process than the average ...
In The Black Swan, Nicholas Nassim Taleb writes about Umberto Eco's library, which was estimated to contain over 35,000 ...
The Minimum Viable Sales Stack: A sales leader I know was intrigued by the promise of better results through technology. He ...
It is easy to find yourself confused by all the terms we use to describe B2B sales strategies.
What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you ...
You will not win every opportunity you pursue, but you will win deals you don't deserve to win—and lose deals you should ...
Building a full pipeline is hard work, so many salespeople tend to stop prospecting once they think they have enough ...
“The lure of easy money has a very strong appeal.” -- Glenn Frey, Hustler's Blues
There are many types of online sales training programs, each with their own unique advantages and disadvantages. Finding the ...
The major mistake sales organizations make is believing their product or service is their primary competitive advantage.
No one ever seriously asks themselves, "what do decision-makers do?" It’s right there in the name: decision-makers make ...
Setting the Table When you and your prospective client sit down at a literal table they bring a lot of figuratively tasty ...
One way you can stunt your growth as a salesperson or sales organization is by spending more time than necessary serving ...
Finding the right sales prospecting techniques can help your salespeople generate amazing results. Of course, there are ...
As our environment continues to change at a blistering pace, few salespeople and sales organizations can keep up with new ...
Let’s be honest: most of what is taught or trained in B2B sales enablement is designed to help the salesperson succeed, not ...
Even though both Johnny and Jenny are highly capable salespeople, they continue to coast with minimal prospecting, and their ...
Every sales manager wants to produce the best results for their team, but fear—and the negative habits fear creates—often ...
What are the best sales tactics that you should be using to close more deals in less time? Yes – we said MORE deals in LESS ...
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” –Peter Drucker One way you might ...
The 4 Failure Points Certain outcomes are so critical to success in sales that we can consider them failure points. If you ...
Forget your portfolio: the first and most important investment you need to make is in yourself. You are the single most ...
The legacy discovery call has been completely and entirely commoditized, with the same pattern being repeated in sales ...
There is a never-ending search for the "magic bullet" in sales: something sales organizations and salespeople can buy, ...
The Bad Behaviors Driving “No” Every salesperson pays a high price for the bad behaviors—often stemming from poor and ...
“This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, This ain't no fooling around. No time for dancing, or lovey dovey, I ain't got ...
“Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.” –Elon Musk
Recently, I saw a report on how salespeople spend their time. I was surprised to discover how much time they devoted to ...
When you start a business relationship by sending your prospective client an email, you are providing them the easiest ...
As a leader, you are responsible for creating the future: every outcome belongs to you, so the buck can’t stop anywhere ...
There are a number of questions I ask salespeople during job interviews. To measure “fit,” i.e., how well they’re going to ...
I’ve just participated in a cross-training session where marketers learn how to make cold calls. It's designed to help them ...
A long time ago, your biggest source of stress might have been local predators, to whom you looked like a tasty snack. Your ...
The activity that we call sales is a series of conversations. The first conversation leads to the second, but only if the ...
This idea may be countercultural, but salespeople try to cheat nature at their peril—nature has been around since forever ...
Whenever two or more salespeople compete for a prospective client's business, only one of them can win the contest. We don't ...
When your dream client agrees to meet with you, they are giving you the gift of their time. Honor that gift by making good ...
We’ve been describing B2B products and services as “solutions” for decades, positioning them to eliminate a problem for our ...
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." -Shakespeare, Hamlet For well over one hundred years, salespeople have started ...
Change follows a subtle but consistent pattern: Uncertainty → Certainty of Negative Consequences (Threshold) → Uncertainty → ...
One of the variables to success in sales is credibility, something enabled by your confidence. The less confident you are in ...
The Gist: The legacy approaches are inadequate for today's B2B sales environment. Most sales organizations missed the ...
The Gist: We are used to solving a certain set of our client's problems. As time has passed, our clients have developed ...
The Gist: We don't often take advantage of our experiences and our insights. Writing down your observations and experiences ...
The Gist: Some communication mediums are easier to use because they don't require the other party’s consent. Other mediums ...
“The essence of Western civilization is the Magna Carta, not the Magna Mac. The fact that non-Westerners may bite into the ...
The Gist: We tend to focus only on client problems addressed by our “solution.” Our clients also need help solving other ...
It’s easy to confuse the terms “strategy” and “tactics.” Simply put, a strategy is a plan to achieve a goal or an aim, while ...
The Gist: Technology used wisely is a blessing. Used poorly, it's a curse. Technology has been offered as the single answer ...
The Gist: The discovery call is a critical conversation with a large bearing on the rest of the sales conversation. Yet most ...
The Gist: It is no longer enough to identify your client’s problem, especially when it’s already well-known. Less than half ...
The Gist: Some current sales practices actually prevent deals. We have been bamboozled into choosing efficiency over ...
The Gist: We have reached peak email prospecting, the point when its effectiveness begins an inevitable decline. Two emails ...
The Gist: You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Outdated approaches to sales, especially during first ...
At 4:30 AM each morning, I am greeted by my most faithful companion: it never strays more than a few feet away. Every ...
The Gist: The way to a second meeting is a valuable first meeting. The reason clients disengage is because the conversation ...
The Gist: It’s heresy to say so, but the sales process was designed to solve the sales organization’s problems. Creating a ...
The Gist: New leads are not better than old leads. Recency bias will cause you to believe that a new lead will be easier to ...
The Gist: Sales is made up of two parts: Opportunity Creation and Opportunity Capture. The more you focus on these major ...
The Gist: Over time, our technologies have taught us to prefer asynchronous communication mediums. They have also convinced ...
The Gist: Salespeople are being taught to fear cold calling by people who should know better. Much of the advice they offer ...
The Gist: Teaching salespeople to avoid making cold calls stunts their growth and development. Synchronous communication ...
The Gist: Time is a finite resource and there are only a select amount of hours and days. There is no more important ...
The Gist: Some leaders struggle with how to deal with poor performers, especially those with a bad attitude. These leaders ...
The Gist: Too many salespeople still believe that consultative selling means asking the client about their pain. Approaches ...
The Gist: We want to win deals, but we can’t do that without first creating them. There are (still) only two things we do in ...
The Gist: In a world of constant, accelerating, disruptive change, agility is a competitive advantage. Unlearning is as ...
The Gist: One of the primary obstacles to better results is a refusal to unlearn poor techniques. Many still believe that ...
The Gist: There is never a reason to trash your competition. The more mature your contact, the more you’ll alienate them by ...
The Gist: Your clients have expectations for how you use the time they give you. It is important to give them what they need ...
The Gist: The legacy approaches to the sales conversation have created a form of commoditization. In these approaches, ...
The Gist: More and more, sales organizations are refusing to provide their prospective clients with the help of a ...
The Gist: Conversations are better than automation. Use automation only when your outcome doesn’t require creating value. It ...
The Gist: We sometimes overestimate our competition, making them a sort of bugaboo. There is nothing you can do about how ...
The Gist: Sales is a competition, a contest with a single winner and multiple losers. In a zero-sum game, you need to create ...
The Gist: A new sales conversation is replacing the traditional sales call. Clients increasingly find traditional sales ...
The Gist: We are increasingly choosing prospecting approaches that harm our professional relationships. The automation that ...
The Gist: Clients don’t change when they are not compelled to change. One way to uncover what might cause them to change is ...
The Gist: Many thought leaders recommend that you should not pitch your clients, a model that suggests not starting with ...
The Gist: Preparation can improve your ability to deal with client conversations, especially difficult ones. It is critical ...
The Gist: The decades-old stereotype of a high-pressure salesperson is no longer accurate. While some sales organizations ...
The Gist: Most discovery is too shallow to create much value for your prospective clients. Finding the presenting problem is ...
The Gist: The legacy approaches to sales are inadequate for today’s environment. Your prospective clients measure you by how ...
The Gist: A modern approach to sales calls for a new sales conversation. The outcomes of early conversations have changed, ...
The Gist: It is critically important to guide your clients through the conversations necessary to improving their results. ...
The Gist: Your clients measure your performance by the value of the conversations they have with you. Your intentions can ...
The Gist: No one likes getting a straight pitch on LinkedIn. That approach is treated as “spam.” You can make the same ...
The Gist: Gary Klein offers a useful lens to think about your power in a sales conversation. Certain insights are only ...
The Gist: Every human being has potential greater than they can imagine. The main challenge to growth and development is our ...
The Gist: Prospecting isn’t easy, but it’s even harder with a poor strategy. Our only tool in sales is a conversation, ...
The Gist: Early legacy approaches to sales leveraged external factors to create a competitive advantage. Eventually, these ...
The Gist: Even though there is a lot of criticism aimed at legacy sales approaches, there is nothing similar when it comes ...
The Gist: It is natural to believe that a larger competitor has certain advantages. The advantages of size don’t create any ...
The Gist: In the past, salespeople had an advantage created by an information disparity: the salesperson had information ...
The Gist: When we focus on selling, we can lose sight of our obligation to create value for our prospective clients. You ...
The Gist: Advice to “do whatever it takes to win the deal” is presented without the necessary guardrails. When what you’re ...
The Gist: Some salespeople try to acquire a meeting by mentioning their prospective client’s direct competiton This approach ...
The Gist The legacy approaches follow processes that were effective in the past, but they have been consistently losing ...
The Gist: One of the easiest ways to recognize your sales approach is to look at the level of value you create for your ...
The Gist The legacy laggard approach to sales views the product as the main source of value for prospective clients. The ...
The Gist: In a transactional sale, the salesperson has too little power to lead the client. In the legacy solution approach, ...
The Gist: The legacy approaches to sales are designed to overcome objections. The legacy solution approach to B2B sales ...
The Gist The legacy laggard approach seeks the decision-maker. The legacy solution approach seeks the buying committee. The ...
The Gist You win and lose deals in discovery. Both of the legacy approaches (legacy laggard and legacy solutions) place a ...
The Gist At one time, information about your products and services would have been valuable enough to earn a meeting. Later, ...
The Gist The legacy laggard approach starts the conversation with “why us?” The legacy solution approach starts with “why us ...
The Gist: The legacy laggard approach to sales is transactional, even if some versions have added a few modern strategies. ...
The Gist Embrace fearless value creation: respond to what your prospective clients need from you, in order to create and win ...
The Gist The Holy Grail in sales now is “efficiency,” even though few apply that term accurately. The push for efficiency is ...
The Gist Salespeople often complain about rejection, even when it is only their value proposition that their clients reject. ...
The Gist: As their environments become more complex, it is more difficult for clients to make good decisions. Some ...
The Gist: You can create different levels of value for your clients. Sometimes, you find yourself in a situation where you ...
The Gist We sometimes believe that we lose deals because of our pricing. Value is a perception, meaning different people ...
The Gist The formula for revenue growth is simply adding enough revenue to exceed your churn. It is difficult to create ...
The Gist: Some so-called sales experts would have you believe the cold call should be eliminated: they are wrong. The ...
The Gist: It’s important to make decisions in pursuit of your goals and desired outcomes. Making good decisions means ...
The Gist: There will always be constraints on what you can accomplish in a certain amount of time. Poor results have less to ...
The Gist B2B sales has new challenges that we must learn to overcome. Meeting these new challenges will require new skills ...
The Gist: Your relationships are like a bank account into which you can make deposits. You can also make withdrawals from ...
The Gist: The competencies necessary for success in B2B sales have changed over the last two decades. Most of the legacy ...
The Gist: The last three major recessions were not caused by the normal boom and bust cycle. Two out of three were caused by ...
The Gist: The legacy approaches to sales tend to recommend withholding information and insights. These approaches don’t ...
The Gist: How do you use your relationship capital? Your relationship capital degrades over time. All things being equal, ...
The Gist: There are three variables necessary for acquiring a meeting with your prospective client. Using these variables, ...
The Gist: The discovery process is where you create the most significant value for your prospective clients. Asking ...
The Gist: We live in a day and age in which technology is eating the world. Technology has allowed us to make our work and ...
The Gist: Those who believe the cold call should be eliminated often have a set of complaints. These complaints are ...
The Gist: Decision-makers don’t always tell you the truth. Much of the time, they prefer to avoid conflicts. What you hear ...
The Gist: It’s never good to be told that you are going to have to call a company’s corporate office. Even when a local ...
The Gist: Some language choices are more effective than others. Arguing about your profitability when competing with a ...
The Gist: Time is your single, finite, non-renewable asset. Don’t let the fact that you are busy prevent you from making the ...
The Gist: Because you help your clients produce better results, you are certain to have more insights and a better ...
The Gist: In B2B sales, especially those that require complex decisions, consensus is necessary. Winning big deals means ...
The Gist There are different perspectives available to you as a salesperson, all of which provide some part of the “truth.” ...
The Gist: There is a lot of attention paid to the idea of Customer Experience. Even though we have the concept of the ...
The Gist: The “cold call” has been under attack since the advent of social media tools. Many mistakenly believe the medium ...
The Gist Talking about your competition is tricky and can be harmful to your sales results. Any attempt to trash your ...
The Gist: The outdated legacy approach to preparing for a meeting is inadequate for our current reality. Most preparation ...
The Gist: The long arc that makes up the evolution of sales moves from more transactional behaviors to strategies that allow ...
The Gist: We worry too much about our competition because we believe external factors are going to decide the contest. The ...
The Gist: Only calling on clients who are pre-qualified is no longer a good strategy. Expecting your client to be fully ...
The Gist: More and more, buyers tend to treat a B2B decision as if it were a B2C purchase. Information and insight have ...
The Gist: Salespeople are struggling to reach their goals, and sales cycles are getting longer. More deals are ending in a ...
The Gist: Your clients won’t always like the recommendations you make, especially when it means they have to change. Not ...
The Gist: Account Executives tend to move into an account management role, a challenge plaguing many sales organizations. ...
