Colleen’s Blog

Your customer today is in a tough spot when making decisions. If you’re a seller trying to convert new prospects into buyers, you’re feeling the effect.

Too many leaders today are still stuck in a “behind the desk” mindset. They fixate on managing data rather than on managing their relationships with people.

It used to be that buyers needed to know you first before they could trust your product. Today the reverse is true.

All value-based selling—when done effectively—is about correctly defining the benefits of your product or service based on what matters to your customer. As I like to regularly remind sellers and leaders: the only value that matters is what matters to the client. The better you are at defining this, the better you become at building a broad array of connections that improve your closing ratio.

There’s a disconnect between the future of sales and the current popularity of two-tiered sales structures that include sales development reps (SDRs) combined with field reps. I touched on it in this article: let’s now explore that point in more depth.

Creating and maintaining a high-growth, high-profit business in your marketplace—one where sellers, leaders, and customers all thrive—is essential. That’s why, for many years, I’ve advocated putting value-based selling at the centre of your work.

I’ve been talking a lot about the importance of having the right mindset for uncertain times. And for sellers and leaders alike, I regularly remind you why you must adapt, how you work, and how you connect with customers to survive and thrive in this fast-changing marketplace.

As sales managers, you can’t solve your team and company’s problems if you're not talking to customers directly. Especially during these uncertain times, I know many of you have become comfortable with just sitting behind your desk. However, you need to get out and talk to customers or, at least, talk to them virtually.

The big mistake repeated far too often by sellers throughout the global pandemic—and in any period of abrupt change—is believing that if you wait long enough and keep on working the way you always have, things will eventually get back to normal.

I don’t need to tell you that the 2020 global pandemic was a watershed year for change. But, what gets overlooked far too often is that the conditions for change—especially in sales—were apparent for years. Selling was ripe for disruption because, as the marketplace changed, the behaviours and assumptions of sellers did not.