Colleen’s Blog

Today, I want to talk to you about a problem that I see many people in our industry make and that is believing that giving your customers more choice is the best thing you can do for them.

Are you present enough with your clients? A couple of years ago, I had just boarded a flight and noticed an attendant in the aisle helping another passenger find their seat. Behind her, a woman entered the plane, yelled "Excuse me!" and barged pass the flight attendant and then mumbled "well you do want to board, don't you?"

Recently, I was speaking at a large conference that was focusing on sustainability and building technologies in the green space. After my presentation, someone came up to me and said, "Colleen, we need to stop focusing on the gloom and doom. We need to start telling people how great our solutions are."

I've been thinking a lot about the state of sales, especially its state in the future. Here are some of my predictions and musings.

I've been working with a business owner who's been struggling with the concept of accountability because she just doesn't want to fire people for not hitting their goals or penalize them for not doing the things she wants them to do.

It goes without saying, but sales can be one of the most stressful professions out there, period. Your sales team is constantly feeling the pressure of hitting targets, keeping clients happy, ensuring the delivery of what was promised, and the list goes on. There can, as a result, be a natural tendency for sales professionals to "oversell" in an attempt to close more deals and hit their targets.

The other day, I got a call from one of my long-term coaching clients. He was excited because he had just blown away his sales numbers. He had a 7 million dollar quota and he closed 10 million, but he was also furious about being reprimanded for not putting in as many miles as the other field sales reps.

Have you ever taken a serious look at your pipeline? There are likely a few extremely valuable clues it's trying to tell you! Let's take a deeper look at this.