Colleen’s Blog

Everything old becomes new again... Have you heard of that saying before? I bring it up because it's true, especially with an "old" lead generation practice which is turning into one of the hottest trends of 2018. That's right, live events...they're back! Let's talk about how you can use them to generate leads.

Your sales team could be too isolated! A couple of years ago, I was working with an organization and we brought their entire sales team together in one room. One of the first things we did is we asked each individual on the team to begin sharing examples, ideas, thoughts and success stories. We wanted to determine whether those success stories aligned with the goals and values that the company put forth. Something interesting happened though. We began hearing phrases like:

I've been inspired by the athletes at the recent Winter Olympic games in PyeongChang. Their grit, tenacity and their ability to perform under pressure are all takeaways for sellers.

It's frustrating. When you see a sales rep struggling month after month, and missing target after target, it's enough to make any sales leader uneasy. The problem is most leaders handle poor performers the wrong way. There's a tendency to have "tough conversations" or attempt to punish them into higher performance. Some leaders even give poor performers the "cold shoulder" and allow a rep's professional performance to seep into their personal behavior towards them. These are all things that are extremely counterproductive and more often than not, contribute to more negativity and even worse performance. Luckily, there are strategies you can put into place to help improve their results. 

If we're connected on LinkedIn, you've probably seen many of my posts surrounding this topic. Cold calling is dead.

The winter Olympics are in full swing and I'll be the first to admit I'm a junkie! I just love competition featuring the best of the best worldwide. Of course, there are always lessons to be learned for us as sellers. Here are the top five from week 1.

You may have noticed this interesting trend... Lost deals tend to be the same ones that stagnate during the proposal phase. That is, after completing a needs analysis, the deals that are ultimately missed are often the same ones that sit, and sit, and sit in the proposal phase. Interestingly enough, in our research, we've also found that completed deals don't tend to stagnate in the proposal phase but they do spend more time in the needs analysis phase. In fact, completed sales on average spend two to three times longer in the needs analysis phase than sales that are lost. Let's go even deeper with this.

Improving productivity to be a more profitable seller - everyone wants to do it, but few actually succeed at it. I'm providing some simple (but extremely powerful) strategies in this live video that you can apply to sell more in less time.

Is your organization creating sales dysfunction without even knowing it? I was coaching a sales executive recently and discovered that the company sets goals based on a September 1st FY start, yet the sales teams goals are set on a calendar year. Think about the discontinuity for a second.

I've often said to B2B sales audiences "If they can't find you, they won't buy from you!" This is why I embrace a ubiquitous marketing approach for sellers. (Chapter 3-4 in Nonstop Sales Boom). This principle applies to all sales, and we can learn from the best practices and massive failures of all industries. Here is a local example: Three new restaurants opened within a four block radius of my condo this week.