Colleen’s Blog

If you travel a lot with work—as I do—it exposes you to a much wider variety of ways that people experience the world around them. But travelling can also make us keen observers of human beings and how they do business with each other.

A short time ago in the B2B field, buyers were unaware of who sellers were until we called them.

As we inch closer to the new year, I wanted to discuss the best way to end the year.

There has been no greater impact on B2B sales in the last decade than the online consumer-buying process.

Workshops and learning events can be the least effective—and for some, even the worst—places for your salespeople to get the training they need. You heard that right. Now, let me explain.

We recently experienced great success with our sales training programs. The customers involved received up to 200 to 400 percent return on investment just a few short months after the program was implemented—not after a year or multiple years, but indeed just a few short months.

When we're making a sale, we're asking someone to make a change—a change in business, strategy, software, people, or products. However, more importantly, change is difficult. If you start thinking about selling as managing a change management process, it really helps you to speed up sales and set yourself apart from the competition. Why? Because your buyers, indeed, don't like change. They're scared of change and making the wrong decision.

It's the thing you always do because it worked before. Much like the delivery person whose route over the years has consisted of taking as many right turns as possible to save time, sales leaders have a tendency of relying on time-honoured habits in the execution of their work.

Whether it's a prospect or a client you've been doing business with for years, you need to over-communicate, not under-communicate. Far too many sellers believe that no news is good news. If they have a problem they are trying to resolve and have not resolved it, they just won't call their customers. This stems from the fear that the customer will either not like their progress or response. Thus, these sellers hide and under-communicate.

Years ago, I had a client based in Northern Europe and they were a ships services company. Their sales VP told me, "Colleen, we have a long and proud history of losing all the RFPs where we have the incumbent relationship." I had to think twice for a second and did not know what he was talking about.