Why it matters: Without an accurate sales pipeline, companies cannot reliably plan their operations and achieve their revenue targets. Top executives commonly miss having a well-established pipeline strategy that is critical in driving “the right” activities and volume to meet predefined goals. This foundation provides guidance for your salespeople, enables accurate sales forecasting, empowers your [...]
In a recent article we described how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the future of sales. Simply put, AI uses the simulation of human-like intelligence, including patterns of thought and predictable action, via software, to predictively simplify, enhance, and automate many segments of the sales process. A key word in this description is "automate.” Which brings [...]
Perhaps Jeffrey Gitomer – author and expert on selling and customer loyalty – said it best: “People don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy.” Today, sales prospects want solutions for their needs, cures for their “pain.” And when they perceive that’s what they are getting, they “love to buy.” To achieve those [...]
Answering the question of how long it takes to fix a sales team isn’t straightforward. Turning a sales organization around depends on many factors, like the number and severity of fundamental issues. It’s impossible to rewire sales performance overnight. Even if you find and fix issues in your sales process, my experience has shown me [...]
While the right sales structure is different for every organization, a successful sales team consists of specific role types that have unique skill sets. It takes a very different combination of skills to keep current customers happy versus landing new accounts, and let’s not forget the internal support needed to keep salespeople selling. “Right People, Right [...]
A sales team can learn a lot from a championship sports team. An organization sets their sights on the prize and finds the right people to guide them there. The coach looks at the team and the competition to create a winning strategy. Players are assigned roles and performance expectations are set. Throughout the course [...]
A lot of people are challenging their business assumptions right now. After nearly a year of coronavirus lockdown and continuous pivoting to stay viable, how in the world do you set clear business priorities and goals for the coming year? I’ve been thinking about this a lot – how do businesses, and business leaders, move [...]
If there is a silver lining to the pandemic-related economic shut down, it is that a lot of excellent salespeople are now available and hungry to contribute to your business. The opportunity here is to rehire your best performers and then build a stronger team than before. To hire a stellar sales team to accelerate [...]
Business books written in the last 20 years certainly did not envision the current challenges posed by COVID-19. Whatever you thought 2020 would look like for your company is now a completely different picture. Any plan to achieve revenue objectives in the short term should be carefully reviewed with more than the usual amount of [...]
Obstacles to growing a business are not always monetary. Issues that restrict a company’s ability to grow are sometimes related to the wrong value proposition (i.e., focusing on your business offering, not on the customer’s needs). How do you know if you have the right value proposition that removes obstacles to growth? And if not, [...]
