Colleen’s Blog

I've been spending a lot of time talking about reducing labor in sales. In fact, we had a blog post about it a few weeks ago as well as a Facebook Live video.

A few weeks ago, I ran a Facebook Live video and we talked specifically about tactics and strategies to sell in a crowded marketplace. One strategy that came up that was so important to anyone who was watching was the concept of frequency and reach.

A few weeks ago, I was facilitating a group of top performers. This is a group of sellers who single-handedly help the company meet their goals. It's wonderful to work in an environment that has so many top minds.

When I facilitate a workshop with a group of sellers, we inevitably start talking about all the different ways that you can communicate with clients. There's social media, email, Zoom, Skype, Abobe, etc. All of these virtual tools allow you to communicate more broadly and effectively with your clients.

Last week, we talked about being nice, staying focused and getting to work and I mentioned that being nice was so important because people do business with people that are motivated, successful and happy. One of the ways that we can show that in our business is to be confident.

Today, we're going to focus on closing. This is the most often missed part of the sales cycle and it's critical that you ask for the sale to close.

Today, we're going to talk about value and specifically selling value instead of price. If I had to guess, 75% of the times that I'm in front of an audience, the salespeople say, "My clients don't care about value. They only care about price and they're just driving us down to this race of zero margins."

Is your business experiencing wild swings in revenue? This may surprise you, but relaying too much emphasis on closing business for your sales team is actually counterproductive to increasing your revenues. What?! Let me explain.

Many sales managers are complaining about their top sellers because they're not team players. It goes without saying that top sellers have to be acting in a legal, moral, and ethical manner at all times. We also want them to get along with people, but they don't need them to be team players.

In the next 5 years, we are going to lose 33% of all inside sales jobs that are focused on order taking, and I estimate that over the next 10 years, all of those jobs will be gone for good.