Thanksgiving signals the official rounding of the corner for wrapping up the business year. While never an excuse that I’ve subscribed to (or let my sales reps use), it can be extremely challenging to “do business” at this time of year. It’s all downhill after turkey day. Holiday parties, office potlucks, client gifts, employee parties,...Read More

It’s presumptuous to think that your customers don’t already have a solution for the service or product you provide. Perhaps presumptuous isn’t the right word. “Naive” maybe? Of course, they already use someone else. Their need doesn’t usually fall into YOUR lap unless you’re strictly an inbound rep responding to inquiries or leads – which...Read More

I remember a funny moment about 10 years ago when a client figuratively slammed the door on me. I had set my sights on this customer as an ideal prospect for my printing solution. I found the right contact, called, emailed, called, emailed, called, called, and one day she answered the phone and said, “Tell...Read More

This is not a “let’s trash small business discussion.” It’s really more of a love letter to small business a plea for you to change so that you can compete with your online retail competition. Two weeks ago I started the process to try to make and buy custom t-shirts for my volleyball team. I...Read More

Many times when a new client reaches out or “sends up the bat-signal” it comes after one or more significant sales losses – especially if the loss is an existing account and it came as a shock. This has happened to me when I was an account executive and I see this often when I...Read More

Let’s talk about your sales and profit margins. How effective do you think your Sales and/or Marketing messages are? Are they compelling and converting leads in to opportunities and opportunities into customers with strong and healthy margins? At what rate? And at what cost to acquire a new customer? (If you don’t know your conversion...Read More

Who’s the winningest woman in US Winter Olympics History? That would be Longtrack Speed Skater Bonnie Blair with 5 Gold medals and 1 Bronze. This past week, Bonnie Blair joined our annual Women Sales Pros conference as a guest speaker and shared some fantastic life lessons about training, competing, and reaching your goals. Her stories...Read More

I will admit I’d like to see your face right now after reading this title. It wasn’t intentionally “click bait” but when sitting in a client’s office and discussing his sales process, he wrote on his whiteboard: “Prospecting: *Research *Call/Connect *FU” He immediately realized his abbreviation for “Follow Up” looked like a particularly nasty insult...Read More

So many of our blog posts and discussions are fruits derived from working through situations with sales teams in sales meetings and training sessions. I’ve written about plenty of my own selling successes and hard lessons learned but I am always in discovery mode looking for better ways to connect with clients, more effective ways...Read More

What do YOU think would be the response when asked, “What are the top challenges sellers and sales pros face today?” Up until 5 to 10 years ago, you might have heard a resounding, “Lack of leads!” coming from salespeople. Nowadays, in this lightning-fast digital world of social platforms and instant communication, that’s not so...Read More