Sales Playbooks

A few weeks ago the folks at Kadient briefed me on their approach and their sales performance improvement tools.  As you would expect, I posed the chicken-and-egg question with respect to what order a company should implement Kadient’s tools versus installing and implementing a sales methodology.  I liked their answers.
I picked up a tweet from [...]

ESR’s Approach For A Sales Performance Improvement Initiative

As ESR is completing our Sales Training Vendor Guide we are updating a number of our models.  Here is a presentation of our sales training approach model that we deliver to project teams tasked with finding, evaluating, and selecting sales training companies. The content is based upon work we’ve done with clients during the [...]

Here’s What’s Going On

ESR has a unique perspective on sales performance improvement. We don’t deliver sales training or sales consulting. We’re sales training industry observers, analysts, researchers and advisors to our clients on what works in sales effectiveness and training.
Here’s what’s been going on at ESR:

A large client in the financial services sector is working very hard [...]

Miller Heiman. What A Brand!

When it comes to marketing, Miller Heiman leads the pack.  I recently spoke with Elizabeth Vanneste, their Chief Marketing Officer. Elizabeth brought Miller Heiman into four telecommunications companies where she had previously worked. She joined the Miller Heiman team last June as a sales VP and took over marketing three months ago.
Elizabeth shared with me that [...]

Checklists: For Surgeons, Pilots and… Salespeople

I believe in checklists.  Clearly the medical community just got the message as well.  A study published online by the New England Journal of Medicine this week shows that adopting a surgical safety checklist (PDF) reduced deaths and complications by more than a third.  From the Wall Street Journal:
Researchers collected data on nearly 8,000 patients [...]

Holden International: Moving In The Right Direction

Followers of this blog are familiar with the high value I place on planning, competitive selling strategies, and political leverage for winning complex sales situations as well as for effectively managing strategic accounts.  I was first introduced to Holden many years ago by Steve Slaughter, a salesrep who worked for me who had been through [...]

New Year Resolutions For Sales Leaders

Pick one or more of the resolutions below.  Commit, execute, enjoy the results.

I’ll never hire another sales rep who can’t get the sales job done. First, completely understand the position and the skills and traits required to be successful.  Evaluating whether a candidate meets those requirements requires [...]

Let’s Get Real Or Let’s Not Play

Last July I was honored to be sent a final draft of Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig’s revised and expanded edition of Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play.
Mahan and Randy are key members of FranklinCovey’s sales performance practice.  (Here is a podcast interview I did with Mahan.)
What is immediately significant about this book is [...]

Early Failure is Better Than Late Failure

Donal Daly, CEO of The TAS Group, wrote a great post (Early failure is better than late failure) on his company’s blog that is more than worthy of your consideration. (Disclosure: The TAS Group is a subscriber to ESR’s research.)
In the post Donal discusses the not-often-enough-overcome challenge of effective qualification.  From the post:
When budgets are [...]

Embedded Sales Learning

Chris Hens, President and COO of White Springs, presented at the Richardson client forum last week.  The subject was in-context sales learning and reinforcement.
With a background in sales training, Chris has a deep understanding of the challenges companies face with respect to sales performance improvement.  White Springs has worked with Complex Sale, Holden, Huthwaite, Miller Heiman, ValuSelling [...]