Colleen’s Blog

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.

Want to know the very best way to keep the majority of your customer base? Develop a healthy sense of paranoia. That's right, paranoia.

You can sometimes learn a lot from your dog. I have a relatively new puppy at home and there's one thing I noticed about her that all salespeople can learn from: you've got to ask for what you want. Indeed, the biggest reason salespeople don't get the sale is because they never ask for it.

In this series, we're looking at sales velocity: measuring how fast your team is making sales and earning revenue. The reason it's one of your most important metrics—and predictors—of success is that it gives you the flexibility to make adjustments in four key areas: opportunities, deal size, win/lose rate and sales cycle time.

Sales velocity is incredibly important because it is the measure of revenue that you bring in per person each day. It's a great indication of the future success or the gap you are creating based on a variety of key measures.

Take the time to analyze how you respond to things, both online and offline. Recently, I posted a new video on cold calling on LinkedIn.

How can you ensure that you’re hiring the right people to join your sales team? Many sales leaders have been asking me how to hire new sales reps and build a profitable team. I often suggest taking a step back before conducting interviews and hiring a new team member. There are a few things you need to do before you proceed with interviews in order to ensure that you hire the right person and create the best team possible.