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What exactly is a sales pipeline? Having a precise answer to this question can spell the difference between success and failure for a sales team. Put simply, a sales pipeline is a precise expression of a company’s sales process. It consists of the individual steps taken by salespeople from the initial contact with a prospect, ...

I believe there are two ways to negotiate: manipulatively and collaboratively. You could call it “win‑win” versus “win‑lose.” Manipulative negotiating sees the participants as adversaries. Tactics include exerting power, using subterfuge and hiding your own nonverbal communications. There is a lot of mistrust, tension, and suspicion. The manipulative negotiator’s goal is to win. There are ...

Achieving quota is stressful for every salesperson but there are some actions you can take to not only mitigate the anxiety, but also to be successful year after year. 1. Understand the strategy of the organization intimately. If you don’t understand what the strategy means in terms of what products, services and solutions need to ...

Shockingly and sadly, I see the ‘Re-active’ approach all the time. How can this be when your largest customers are providing the lion’s share of revenue for your company? Consider the following consequences of a re-active approach: Leaving money on the table due to lack of strategic account planning that is proven to lead to ...

Momentum is a vitally important part of sales management. What could be slowing your sales team down to a dead crawl?

The common meaning of business practice is: “A method, procedure, process, or rule employed or followed by a company in the pursuit of its objectives.” It’s a means to an end. And the common denominator of all business strategies is growth. If a business isn’t growing, the end is near. The primary drivers of growth ...

For 12 years, I taught the subject of “Personal Selling” as an adjunct professor at Loyola University Maryland. A textbook was required in class by the academic-industrial complex, and once in awhile I actually used it–often to highlight the crazy ideas that PhD.s who write textbooks often have about the business world. In one textbook ...

Would you like to have more customers, web visitors opting in, and more “Buy Now” button clicks? If so, do like Hollywood–use stories to sell products and services. You don’t have to think long about it for it to make sense. You’ve probably sat through more than one meeting featuring a chart-and-graph PowerPoint presentation…during which ...