Colleen’s Blog

Your greatest sales success will come when you stop using seller-focused pipelines in your sales process. As I explained in the previous article in this series, that old approach—while still common—is mired in assumptions that simply aren’t true anymore.

Imagine you're preparing a delicious meal and you're short on olive oil. Would you add vinegar to make that oil go further? Of course not! Those are complementary ingredients, not interchangeable ones. You can shake them together but soon they'll separate.

Effective sales coaching can be elusive. Often, it can be done with little to no structure, on an impromptu basis, or only conducted when a seller is in a slump.

Decision paralysis is a real thing. It's when your buyers are so overwhelmed with information that they can't make a decision. Best case, they simply delay. Worst case, they cancel the project, spend their money on something else, or they just go with the incumbent. Neither of those options are good for any of us, especially when you're the incumbent.

All value-based selling—when done effectively—is about correctly defining the benefits of your product or service based on what matters to your customer. As I like to regularly remind sellers and leaders: the only value that matters is what matters to the client. The better you are at defining this, the better you become at building a broad array of connections that improve your closing ratio.

Far too many sales organizations focus only on the internal KPIs (the things that drive your performance): sales velocity, sales process, your funnel, your pipeline, the number of calls you make, the number of conversions you make, your closing ratio, or your average sales cycle. 

Previously, we looked at how important it is to beware of talk traps. Now let's examine the first big step you must take to avoid those costly pitfalls that kill your time and sink deals: learn how to connect with all the right people in your buyer’s decision-making process.

I want to share with you a real-life success story from one of my clients in the oil and gas industry. He started to embrace non-traditional, social, and remote selling in ways he never had before.

During these times, what are you doing to stay visible?

Today's global pandemic is an extraordinary public health crisis. As we get past the immediate challenge of doing what's necessary and wise to stay well and safe, the next big question is: "What must I do to keep going professionally?" Answer that by looking at the best practices of top sales leaders. The wisdom there is timeless. It applies to every tough situation—including this one.