A sales manager faces many daily frustrations in sorting through and figuring out all the risks that must be estimated, taken and not taken. A large part of the reason for this frustration is that a sales team is made up all kinds of divergent elements. You have everything from sales superstars to mediocre salespeople, ... Read Post

I’ve recently become aware that there is an insidious virus running rampant through businesses. Perhaps even your company is infected with it. Read the following scenario and see if it sounds like your place of business. It’s Monday morning and you’re having your regular “get the week off to a good start” sales meeting. You and your ... Read Post

Introducing the latest Pipeliner CRM release: Arithmetica. With its biggest breakthrough yet, Pipeliner brings its unparalleled visual functionality to sales performance management. The Crucial Need Efficient sales performance management has been a primary purpose of CRM solutions since the beginning. This has been for a very good reason. Sales managers—and even sales reps themselves—critically needed the ... Read Post

A company is built of people. From person to person, company risk tolerance varies greatly. It runs the total gamut from the person that is so risk-averse that they go into anxiety every time they leave home, all the way to the person that will dive headfirst and go all in on any deal. The ... Read Post

A Japanese CEO of a manufacturing company was once asked how far into the future the company’s sales strategy was planned. His answer was, “Five hundred years.” While planning a strategy that will guide a company for the next five hundred years is a little long for most CEOs, it does point to an important ... Read Post

Let’s face it: the ability to target and sell directly to decision-makers is basically the Holy Grail. We build email strategies for it, wade knee-deep into profoundly uninteresting LinkedIn groups for it, and buy list after list hoping that the info we get is current enough to at least get the scent of who and ... Read Post

I was working recently with a client at the moment that provides brilliant cloud solutions with a compelling business case. When I asked what their biggest challenges were they said: “Many in the sales team can’t seem to close… they want better closing techniques.” Here’s the thing I’ve learned from three decades in the trenches: ... Read Post

Yes, business processes are crucial to company operation. A company functions far more efficiently with formalized processes. When a system guides you to the next best action there is much less chance to miss an action or a step, thus loose an opportunity. In fact, when a company has, for example, a defined sales process ... Read Post