Colleen’s Blog

You have a few top performers on your sales team. That means they don't need to be coached, right? Wrong. Your top producing salespeople need to be coached just as much as your mid or bottom performing reps. In fact, it may be a wise decision to start coaching them even more! Why? Because by coaching your best reps, developing them further and encouraging them to raise their own bar, you better your chances of moving your sales results forward.

How often do you track your growth accounts? In order to be successful with your growth clients, you should be tracking them on a regular basis. More specifically, you should update yourself on their progress on a monthly basis. This may seem counterintuitive, especially because I recommend tracking key accounts on a quarterly basis. But, there are four big reasons that I suggest tracking your growth accounts more frequently.

You’ve probably achieved a degree of success by doing the right things from the comfort of your office. If you’re taking the right steps directly from your office, well done! The good news is, if you’re maximizing your efficiency during your work hours in the office, you can expect to achieve great sales results! The better news? You can actually achieve even greater success by periodically stepping outside the boundaries of your office. Most salespeople quite literally think inside the box. That is - they do 100% of their work and achieve 100% of their results directly from their office. However, the most successful salespeople have learned how to think and act outside the box. In other words, they know how to leverage opportunities outside of their office to create accelerated sales results. Here are two tips to help you get out of the office and create new opportunities for yourself:

It really has been a crazy few months here at Engage Selling. Working with so many different clients in such a short span really opens your eyes to new ideas, strategies and insights. I'm always open to embracing fresh new thinking! With that in mind, I want to share with you an important point which I believe is currently eluding many sales leaders and executives when it comes to building, growing and managing their sales team - and in turn, it's hurting their overall sales results. "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein This quote is crucial to your continued success as a sales leader. When you're dealing with issues and problems with your sales results, are you trying anything new? Are you trying to find fresh perspectives, thinking and solutions to the issues, or are you using the same kind of approach which may have lead to the problems in the first place?

Do you turn your computer on each morning only to find a mountain of unread emails that need your attention? Email overload is an epidemic in the workplace. Most salespeople that we poll tell us that they spend up to 40% of their day just managing email correspondence between clients and internal partners. If this sounds about right for you as well, imagine the number of sales you're missing out on! It's time to realign your mindset. Email does not close business for you. You close sales based on your personal relationships. Stop working so hard behind your computer and go meet customers in person, or pick up the phone and call them. In order to increase productivity (and sales) you must learn to manage your email inbox. <-- Click To Tweet Here are 5 tips for staying on top of your emails:

Want to know the easiest way to lose control of the sales process? Time and time again, I’ve seen salespeople hold off on presenting their price to a prospective client until the final written proposal. They don’t bring up pricing in person or before a written proposal is sent because they’re afraid to scare away their potential client. Ironically, by following this methodology, they end up scaring away the prospect anyway. If you avoid discussing pricing options until the very last moment, you make it too easy for the prospect to ignore you. They may love everything about you and what you have to offer, but if the amount they see in writing is not something they’re comfortable with, chances are they will simply avoid discussion rather than initiating it. In their mind, it’s much easier to ignore you than to reach out to you for a chance at a better price. Remember, your buyers fear rejection too! When this scenario unfolds, you lose complete control over the sales process and you make it very difficult for yourself to recover from it.

You've heard the saying variety is the spice of life before. So, just like many other things in life, keep the word variety in mind when it comes to your sales if you want see greater results. If you’re only using one or two pipeline streams to create more success with your prospecting, you are likely either currently experiencing or will experience less than impressive sales results. Why? Because the goal of efficient salespeople is to fill their sales funnels with the right prospects using multiple pipeline streams. In today’s market, your buyers have access to information anywhere, anytime and on any form of media they desire. In fact, they are often gathering information about you in places you would rather they avoid, especially if you have little to no presence in those spaces. Therefore, you must be ubiquitous! It’s critical that you retain control of all pieces of information about you and your business by embracing all forms of prospecting tools and media. You need to continue using the traditional and direct prospecting tools that you’re used to but you must also begin using indirect tools such as social media and publishing to your advantage. By doing so, you also expand your presence in the market.