At the very heart of running a sales pipeline is opportunity management. Opportunity management consists of, first, setting up a sales process. This means knowing the various stages that your opportunities pass through, from lead all the way to close. When you know how long a deal takes to make it through the pipeline, and ... Read Post

We’re definitely working in a business world with a mantra of, “What can you do for me today?” Yesterday’s good deeds were expected and therefore not counted as exceptional. However, if you perform at a high level, especially in sales, people will notice. When this happens, I advise my clients that it’s essential to seize ... Read Post

Today the focus needs change to how sales can be more effective — by redefining sales as a strategic asset where its role is to create long term value. Read Post

Strong sales leadership builds, nurtures and inspires. Weak leaders are ineffective at best, and destructive and demoralizing at worst. The business world has always had its share of both—but there are few areas where it matters more than in sales. A bad sales manager can adversely affect the backbone of any organization—sales revenue, employee morale and ... Read Post

Let’s be honest: When you hear that phrase, you should be thinking, “Wait, were you not practicing strong business ethics with me before this?” Those of us that are top producers tend to have more prospects in our sales funnel than other sales reps. This allows us to be brutally honest with our prospects on ... Read Post

Long-serving sales professionals surely remember a time when their industry was all about hustle, drive, and determination. Newcomers needed little other than a high school diploma and some natural ability to become a rising star in a hurry. These days, the encroachment of technology and big data into the world of sales is changing all ... Read Post

Today’s internet age has turned us all into self-diagnosing doctors with medical degrees from Google. We can search out our symptoms and attempt to self-medicate, self-prescribe…perhaps even self-destruct. By the time we seek out actual medical assistance we’ve either driven ourselves into a tizzy about the “worst case scenario” that our symptoms might amount to, ... Read Post

Verne Harnish, the author of Scaling Up and founder of both Gazelles and the Entrepreneurs Organization, once called me on the stage at the Fortune magazine Scaling Up Conference in Atlanta. The audience consisted of 1,000 growth-focused business leaders, and Verne asked me to share a sales tip with them. I took the microphone and ... Read Post