Colleen’s Blog

Last year, I was interviewed by Maclean's Magazine. They asked me what specific courses a student needed to take in order to get a good sales education coming out of university and going into the workplace.

Want to accelerate your sales this year, but unsure which sales skill to make a priority and develop among your sales reps? If I had to choose one to suggest to you, it would be prospecting. Now, let's dive a little bit deeper to specifically the kind of prospecting I'm talking about.

One thing that I've noticed recently is that sellers aren’t always good at learning how to pivot. During the qualification stage, we get thrown for a loop sometimes. A prospect or a buyer answers in a way that we weren't expecting, yet we need to stay on track and pivot with another question.

Get creative. That's my advice for any business owner or sales leader about to embark on a new phase of recruiting. Far too many leaders stick to the same old, same old when it comes to their recruitment process and trying to find great talent to join their team. It's surprising to see how many organizations stick with ads in the paper, online postings and even using the same recruiters they've used in the past. They don't switch things up! The result? The same tired and boring resumes that keeping flocking in. Sure - you may find a great hire in that pile of resumes. But, generally speaking, if you want to find a "stand out" candidate, don't use a worn out process to try and attract them. Here's how you can add a little creativity to your hiring process:

We've already talked about how the more time you spend doing a thorough qualification means you’re going to win more business. You now know what the most often missed question in the qualification phase is: the decision-making criteria, specifically the priority of that criteria.

How often do you track your growth accounts? In order to be successful with your growth clients, you should be tracking them on a regular basis. More specifically, you should update yourself on their progress on a monthly basis. This may seem counterintuitive, especially because I recommend tracking key accounts on a quarterly basis. But, there are four big reasons that I suggest tracking your growth accounts more frequently.

Over the past 12 months, I have done some deep analysis of the sales pipeline, specifically looking for points of leverage that we can create more success with, as well as looking for any problem points that need to be fixed. Here's what I learned.

When professionals in virtually every industry think about "compensation" - especially when it comes to structuring compensation plans, rarely is anything but a dollar sign considered. Yet, there's another powerful way to provide commissions to your sales team, and you're likely overlooking it or underestimating its power and value.