Colleen’s Blog

For the last few videos, I've been talking about client retention and expanding your network within your client accounts. From this, the response I always get is, "Colleen, I don't want to be behind my client's back because they might get angry with me and my relationship with them would erode."

The number one most discussed topic by my community in the past year has been surrounding cold calling. If you're an active member of my online communities, you may recall seeing much of the debate behind the statement I made...cold calling is dead.

Did you just do a double take? Don't close sales...isn't that counter-productive to our sales success? You heard me right. Salespeople should not be attempting to “close” sales with clients. It’s all in the definition.

If I was running your sales team and there had to be one thing that I would insist on, it would be this non-negotiable, mandatory behavior from all salespeople.

At this time of year, the weather is warm (for the most part!), sellers are anxiously awaiting their vacation, and they also seem to buy into the idea that making sales is next to impossible.

The best behavior that you can exhibit in order to retain the vast majority of your customers is a healthy sense of paranoia.

Today, I'm decreeing a ban on corporate marketing materials for salespeople. I want to ban salespeople from using them, ban marketing teams from producing them, and maybe even ban the entire industry. Why?