No is Not a Loss Sales environments that suggest every opportunity is “won” or “lost” do not recognize that NO is a good outcome. A consultative seller creates value by helping the buyer understand what merits action, and what does not. It is equally beneficial to agree to disengage, as it saves time for both parties, and avoids zombie deals. It’s also important to recognize … Read more
Four Reasons to Review Sales Calls with Your Team Many sales calls are recorded. Few are reviewed. Sales calls should not be recorded as a means to simply check boxes. That’s pointless. Effective sales managers use call recordings like game film to help their team analyze the outcomes, and learn what is effective. Here are four reason to review sales calls with your team: #1 … Read more
USI versus Salesforce: A Strategic Marketing Lesson I worked with the sales teams of both USI and Salesforce in their early days. One flopped and one skyrocketed. The difference is that USI tried to broadly sell software as a service to everyone. They did not focus on a single application. They did not focus on a specific market. Salesforce did what Geoffrey Moore recommended. They … Read more
The Problem with Safety Nets I was watching David Rubenstein interview Noubar Afeyan, the co-founder of Moderna, when David asked Noubar why so many start-ups were founded by immigrants. Noubar replied that if you were uprooted from your home, especially forcibly as he was from his native Lebanon, you have no sense of entitlement. He said that a sense of entitlement is only possible if … Read more
The Cost of Sales Discussing costs is a part of every sales cycle, and many sellers bring in the cost of the status quo to help justify the price. Yet we rarely look at our own costs to pursue leads that may never close. Think about all zombie accounts that hang out on your forecast for months or years that will never close. Pursuing them … Read more
The Four Stages of Learning I recently discussed the value of training in order to change our instinctive response to certain situations. If you’ve read my other sales tips, you know that I strongly believe in the value of coaching and repetition in order to learn new skills. Let’s take a quick look at the four stages of learning new skills, as popularized by Noel … Read more
The Value of Training Most people have never been shot at with an assault rifle. Nor have most folks been on the receiving end of a mortar attack. And only relatively few have been ordered to jump out of a perfectly good airplane into the middle of a gunfight, or to charge a busy machine gun nest. These rather stressful situations are simply not part … Read more
Guidelines for Use of Call Recordings in Sales Coaching I just put this together for a new client who expressed concerns about his team’s response to the use of call recordings for coaching, since they had never done it. He was worried about resistance to a new level of accountability that might impact morale. He was also concerned it might make his folks fearful of … Read more
Why Reviewing Sales Call Recordings is Essential I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: reviewing your game film is essential to improving your performance as a salesperson. Why you might be asking? I was on the call, I know what happened. I would challenge you to listen to a sales call and then go back and read the call summary you wrote after … Read more
The Problem of Pressure Software sales can be described as a pressure cooker. Wall Street and private equity firms put pressure on the company CEO, who in turn puts pressure on the CRO. The CRO then pressures the sales team, which forces them to pressure customers. Pressure is often applied in order to accelerate revenue, but this approach can lead to dysfunction. Ultimately, pressure will … Read more