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American Express Offers a Teachable Moment in Ethical Selling “Every ethics question a business person could face comes down to a question you face on your very first sale: what are you willing to do for a buck?”, Philip Broughton wrote in his book, Mastering the Art of the Sale. The question needs to be ...

Summer, unfortunately, is in its waning days and the calendar year has passed the halfway point. In your selling year, there have likely been many positives and negatives to deal with but with a heavy dose of sales optimism, you know there’s still time to take actions to drive improvement, hit your year-end numbers and ...

It was a very busy Monday at Kopp Consulting. As I was going through each task on my checklist, I needed to call a potential client. But before I even picked up the phone, I prepared what I would say if I reached his voicemail instead of him. No matter how busy I am, I ...

One of the biggest issues in any sales organization is the lack of congruency between what the overall sales strategy says and what salespeople do every day. Indeed the same issue is similarly at play between the sales plan and the plan for the entire organization. The strategy says one thing and not only do ...

What Selling Behaviors Would Change if You Worked Straight Commission? When I started my sales career, I was a commission only salesperson. I wouldn’t classify this as a gentle transition into the selling world, but it definitely made me work. Not having a base salary is a really great way to learn and develop positive ...

In my days as vice president of marketing at several technology companies, I distinctly remember how difficult it was for my team of marketing professionals to command the respect of the salespeople in the company. No matter how much product knowledge we had, that wasn’t enough. We were finally successful in doing so, but only ...

Why Lessons Learned Customer Meetings Always Offer a Strong ROI Your Return on Investment for Retrospectives Retrospectives, sometimes called a win/loss analysis, are powerful for the following reasons: Done correctly, you can uncover the real buying criteria and decision process. Since the sale is behind you, but still fresh in everyone’s mind, it’s a perfect ...

The purpose of process is to ensure consistency. A good process is like a checklist that ensures the right things get done by the right people at the right time. Unfortunately, sales is a discipline that often lacks documented processes. Consequently, sales results are often unpredictable from one quarter to another. Many organizations are now ...