Colleen’s Blog

I recently worked with a client on a new program and got the opportunity to interview a few of their sales managers. I wanted to identify what differentiated top performing managers from poor performing managers. There was one aspect, in particular, that stood out.

It’s one of the biggest challenges you face with a new customer: scouting out the landscape of their organization and determining who the decision makers are (and aren’t).

I recently had a conversation with a really smart sales VP who said, "I need my team to remember that our job is to provoke our customers. It's to make people think. It's to bring them new ideas that they had never thought about before."

Recently, I talked about customer loyalty and how it’s your job—not theirs—to create ideal conditions for them to stick with you. But what about within your organization? It matters here, too.

Are you pushing the sale too hard with your prospects and clients? Look, we all know sales is about persistence. Sometimes though, sellers don't know when to slow down on that persistence and actually repel the client away.

One of my clients recently told me that they wanted to divide their sales team up into “hunters” and “farmers.” It's not an ideal structure in my mind, but they wanted to go through with this and believed it was best for their business. Thus, I tried to find ways to make it work for them. In particular, here’s what I discovered. 

When it comes to objections, there is no reason you should be unprepared to handle them. Think about it, there are generally only a few objections that you're going to hear:

It’s incredibly frustrating. Ride-along coaching ought to be a powerful tool at the disposal of every leader in a sales-based organization today. But, many still don’t use it properly and their sellers—and sales—suffer the consequences.

Beginning another phase of recruiting or simply want to increase your hiring success? There are certain things that should be automatic red flags. If they pop up while you're interviewing someone, it's a telltale sign that you should probably steer clear from them. Let's take a look at a few warning signs.

Are you clear on your prospecting? You're probably familiar with the saying "always be closing."