Stop celebrating continuances. Your sales process has specific steps to progress from opening to closing the sale. There is no step in that process where sellers sit on the sidelines. So why do sellers breathe a sigh of relief or rejoice when they get a continuance? The dictionary definition of continuance is “an act of ... Read Post

Decades ago, psychotherapist Thom Hartmann proposed two mental models that described how people go about their work. The hunter mindset, based on nomadic societies, suffered from a short attention span but had hyper-focus for short bursts of time. The farmer, based on agrarian societies, was patient and worked steadily with the understanding that he would ... Read Post

Pre-call planning. As all sales managers know, there are tons of reasons why sales reps tend to avoid it like the plague. “I don’t do scripts”, “I’m best when I’m spontaneous” or “I can spend my time much more effectively doing other things” are all in the chorus. Then there’s, “It’s just a waste of ... Read Post

Salespeople live in a world full of competitive claims that lack creativity, imagination, and truth. Most differentiation statements advocated by organizations and intended to convince us involve words like “best”, “number one”, “leader”, “fastest growing”, “most” and “highest quality” to assert their distinguishable characteristics vis-a-vis their competition. The usual clap trap These are common statements ... Read Post

There are many things we can say about automation—but probably the most relevant thing is that the goal is interconnection. This means connection between all sites, companies, and systems where such connection is required and sensible. From the Past Coming out of the past, each individual system has its own peculiarities. That is why, in ... Read Post

The world of sales is moving so rapidly it is hard to keep up. And, with the average 18-month turnover of sales leaders, it is important know what levers to pull to improve effectiveness. Read Post

Who doesn’t want to skyrocket their sales and have a successful business? If you would ask any business owner what’s his biggest dream, the answer is obvious. Each entrepreneur wants to increase their sales and profit. However, all business owners know that they need to put in a lot of effort if they want to ... Read Post

Most people understand that marketing is key in how well sales performs, but the service organization is even more important. And the problem is that most organizations try to use service as a key component of their competitive strategy yet few actually deliver anything but mediocre service. Quite frankly, service generally is abysmal despite the ... Read Post