Colleen’s Blog

One thing that I know all top performers have in common is that they're really good at self-assessing such as asking questions on what they did well on.

As much as we all wish that each client we work with turns out to be a dream, we often need to come back down to reality and face the facts. There are certain instances where clients simply need to be fired. Sometimes, they're unprofitable. Other times, they're simply too painful to deal with. Whatever the reason may be, getting rid of them should be done carefully and professionally.

I've been working a lot with sales managers over the past few months and interestingly, we've been talking about recruiting, retention, motivation, and top performance. They all have one thing in common.

Recently, I've been doing a lot of research with our clients and a lot of reading on sales turnover rates because it's impossible to create a non-stop sales boom if you have high turnover.

Recently on my LinkedIn page, we've been having an interesting discussion on compensation plans. Over the course of my career as a consultant, I've met two or three sales leaders who like to have compensation plans that "keep their salespeople guessing" because they think it "keeps them on their toes."

We're finding that buyers are limiting contact with sellers to manage their time. In fact, Jill Konrath put it best when she said, "buyers are busy and long-term planning is sometimes only a few weeks."

Do you ever feel as though you're not doing quite enough for your clients? You've delivered everything that you promised to deliver, and the client seems to be happy with the services and products you have provided them. Still, you just can't shake this feeling that not enough is being offered to them by you and your team.

Ten years ago, I was working with clients where we were focused on their business as a speciality item. One of the biggest banks in the world was one of my clients at the time and they were losing business to niche specialists.

Are you blind to the major turnoffs you may be exhibiting to your clients and prospects? Look, your clients will tell you if they think your service is no longer of value to them or if they received poor customer service from one of your reps.