Colleen’s Blog

When I ask sales teams what's the number reason why their pipeline isn't more full—how come they're managing a pipeline so lean it's going to be impossible for them to hit their targets—they give me an excuse. They abdicate responsibility, claiming that their marketing department has not provided them with enough leads. You have to be responsible for your own pipeline.

I recently talked to a group of sales leaders. It was the last three days of their quarter and they told me, "Colleen, we have to admit: we are having a fire sale. We're doing everything we can right now, including deep discounts to push us over the end of the month because we are a bit behind and we want to finish the quarter on track."

If you want to make more sales, you have to think about this. First, understand that we live in an "on demand generation."

Some sales reps give up too easily. That is, they'll reach out twice, perhaps three times to a prospect before throwing in the towel and moving on. 

So far in this series—which looks at four adjustments you can make to improve your sales velocity — each activity has involved both a planning and execution stage.

Over the last few years, I have been working with a number of companies who have all formalized and institutionalized this process of demonstrating tangible return on investment with their sales teams by building return on investment calculators.

Sales is one of those professions that often require a heavy travel schedule, so I thought sharing my top 4 travel tips could save you time and help you avoid headaches! After all, showing up tired or even worse, late, can end a meeting before it even starts. And, our energy levels as well as how punctual we are can often depend on our travels. So, without further ado, here are my top 4 travel tips:

I often get asked: what is considered a normal close rate and how do I improve it?

So far in this series on sales velocity—which is all about understanding how fast you and your team are making sales and earning revenue—we've talked about what you need to do more of. More opportunities earned, for instance, means a bigger, healthier sales pipeline for your business.

Today, I will be exploring how you can improve the metric of sales cycle length: how many days it takes to close a piece of business. If you can move that, for example, from 90 days to 80 days or 120 days to 90 days, you can dramatically improve your sales velocity.