What About Your Salesreps Who Work From Home?

A lot more salesreps are working from home now than even a few years ago.  But working from home isn’t for every salesrep or every company.  Now’s the time to look at this issue.  It could mean the difference between your home-office reps making their numbers or not.
A post on (Jigsaw’s CEO) Garth Moulton’s blog [...]

The Bridge Group: Some Insight Into Lead Generation

Lead Gen is a big, big issue these days for many companies.  Those companies that didn’t have an effective Lead Gen function coming into this economic crisis have a big challenge: investing the time and money now to get this done the right way.  It’s like trying to change a tire on a racing car [...]

InTouch With Brian Carroll On Lead Generation

One of ESR’s clients has been engaged with Brian Carroll’s InTouch, Inc. team for lead generation and nurturing.  We sat in on a meeting with Brian’s team and the client the other day.
I asked Brian for permission to share with you the Lead Gen Portfolio graphic he uses with his clients.  Take a good look [...]

Down Economy. Fewer Deals. Respond To An RFP!

When I worked coaching sales teams I generally took a tough, if not black and white, position on responding to blind RFPs.  My clients heard me say again and again, “Follow conventional wisdom:  If you didn’t write it, your competitor probably did.  Let’s come up with more productive ways to spend your time.”
(Now I’m on [...]

How Are Sales Training Companies Faring In This Economy?

A few of our clients have asked how the mainstream sales training companies are doing during this economic crisis.  Let me provide you with a few data points.
I received an email today from one CEO saying, “We are completing a great year with a 30+% growth.”
Based upon my understanding of current sales training demand, another [...]

Why Is Goal Setting So Important In Sales?

Jonathan Farrington wrote a guest post on Paul McCord’s blog this week, entitled Top 5% Achievers Expect to be Successful Because They Plan for It.
Jonathan provided the why’s and how’s of goal setting in as clear a way as I have seen.
As Jonathan’s title suggests, goal setting isn’t a standalone activity, but rather a component [...]

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 [...]

Podcast: Brian Carroll on Lead Generation

We’ve just published my interview with Brian Carroll for my sales thought-leader podcast series. 
Wait!  Brian Carroll is a sales thought-leader? 
Absolutely. 
All of us in sales face a significant and ongoing challenge.  I’ve written about it again and again.  It’s the lack of mutual understanding, alignment, and ability to effectively and jointly execute among many sales and [...]

Hiring Inexperienced Sales Reps

I came upon a terrific blog post a while back written by Martice Nicks.  That post followed an earlier one Martice wrote.  They both discuss a very important and always relevant question: Should I hire experienced or inexperienced sales reps?
Without stealing all of Martice’s thunder, I want to hit you hard with something from his [...]