Colleen’s Blog

Your mindset is typically one of two things. It can either be one of your greatest tools or one of your worst obstacles. The good news is you get to choose which side of the spectrum your mindset sits. If there’s one quality every successful salesperson can share, it’s their overall mindset for success.

Salespeople notoriously do not follow up with leads that they are working on. They get distracted by new promising leads coming into the pipeline and they forget about the leads they are pursuing. Simply put, they give up too soon. They are concerned about being perceived as stalkers, resulting in the neglection of good leads.

Last month, I had the pleasure of keynoting in Washington, D.C. at Alan Weiss's Million Dollar Consulting® Convention. Lisa Larter, who hosted a session at the event, recently shared a blog post and quoted some of the critical points from my keynote. The theme and key message was this: The buying process has changed and, in today's world, you can't assume it starts with you. I've included an excerpt from Lisa's blog so you can gain some of the same ideas I shared with the audience in April, plus Lisa's insights on your "silent" sales partner:

The number one question I get from sales leaders: how do I get my sellers to ask for more referrals? Sellers are notoriously bad at asking for referrals in a business to business environment because it makes them sound needy, helpless, or desperate. How do we rectify this fearful mindset?

Ultimately, your clients are looking for solutions to their obstacles or problems. The perfect solution presentation follows a series of steps to help facilitate this. You never want to present solutions to a client without being strategic!

There's the competition you're thinking of, and there's the competition that might be flying under your radar. Let's take a look at who your competition truly is. 

In today's world, you either decide to be digital or you decide to be dead. What's your choice?

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.

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.