Colleen’s Blog

There’s one thing I’ve noticed with organizations and people who are really good at bringing new business: they are good at operationalizing value. These organizations and people have closing ratios higher than the average: 40% to 45%, as opposed to the average of 25% to 30%.

   Here’s an idea for all of you planning your sales kickoffs or big sales meetings with all of your team present: rather than just having a number of outsiders come in and talk about their motivational, sales, or consulting principles, have somebody come in and interview your top performers.

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.

Last week, we started talking about trends in the marketplace. Another trend that we are spotting inside corporations is that the buying process is becoming more collaborative than ever.

Today, I want to talk to you about a problem that I see many people in our industry make and that is believing that giving your customers more choice is the best thing you can do for them.

I’m touring Japan for a couple weeks (or should I say eating my way through Japan), and I’ve noticed that the best meals are also the simplest. From the freshest fish, perfectly cooked rice, handmade noodles, a locally, just-picked vegetable, the best meals have a singular focus on each plate highlighting a single ingredient with no ornate sauces, or fussy preparations. In thinking back to my past travels, Mykonos was the same way. The meals we remember the most were simply prepared and focused on the highest quality, local ingredients. Occam’s Razor tells us that most often the simplest solution is the best. And, while this is the case for food, it is also the case for revenue generation. A confused buyer never buys, and a confused seller never sells.

Picture this...you call into your bank for support. Upon dialing the number, you're prompted by a machine to enter in your card number and other details. After this, you're transferred to a rep who then asks you for those exact credentials again. That rep, who can't properly answer your inquiry, transfers you over again to another rep who asks you to verify yourself one more time. It's frustrating just to think about it, right?

Your buyers want to co-create the solution to their problem with you and be part of the solution process as opposed to being told what to do.

I’ve noticed something about sales managers, companies and even salespeople. They tend to overcomplicate the selling process. Could members of your sales team be falling victim to this trap? There are only four things that you need to do in every single sales process, so keep it simple.

Your sales process could be out of date or prone to more errors than you think. Recently, I worked with a sales VP who was looking to retool their entire sales process. He works with two sales managers who have been in their respective positions for a number of years. Due to this, their process has become more or less automatic. I helped them conduct an end to end sales process review, and here's what we discovered: