Colleen’s Blog

It can feel like a big, scary problem when your customer starts demanding you renegotiate terms and prices on an existing agreement you have with them. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. As a sales leader, there are steps you must take to ensure you remain in the driver’s seat in challenging situations like this—no matter what.

"Why aren't we just doing what our biggest competitor is doing?"

It occurs in just about every business and it’s happening a lot now: the dreaded call from a buyer who says they need to renegotiate the terms of an agreement you have with them.

Good deals get stuck when you lack access to the right people to successfully close a sale.

"How can I sell more?" I hear that question a lot from salespeople everywhere. More often than not, it's framed around a false assumption: the belief that you need to get more to sell more.

Today, your customer sees you—the seller—before you see them. That means we no longer live in a sell-to marketplace. It’s a buy-from world now. That shift has important consequences for how sales pipelines are built and what you use them for.

It’s a friction point that holds you back from achieving sales success: buyer objections. If left unchecked, those objections will stop you dead in your tracks from being able to present a compelling proposal to your prospective customer. And that puts you at risk of landing fewer deals. The more objections a buyer has, the more likely it is you have a fact-finding mission on your hands.

More than ever, you need a proven approach to sustain your business now and position it for success in the economic recovery that’s coming. Even with everything difficult that is happening in the world right now, there’s some good news on the business front.

“We didn’t see it coming.” That’s what an exasperated client of mine said to me recently when they lost not one, but two big accounts due to unforeseen internal changes within each customer’s organization.

These days, my clients are concerned about two significant barriers holding them back from hitting their sales targets. You’re likely facing these as well.