How Do You Fix Sales Ineffectiveness?

What’s going on here?

Sales training has been around for more than 100 years.  Yet every year, new approaches appear with the promise of being “The Silver Bullet.”  Old approaches—even those that are relevant to fixing the proble—are labeled “old-school,” and rejected.
On Amazon.com there are 29, 469 books under the category of “How to Sell.”  In [...]

The New Social Media (Wars)

I’ve been involved in a number of posts on The Customer Collective where there have been some personal attacks by a few social media zealots against some of us that have a more balanced view of the capabilities and tools required for effective B2B selling going forward in this new(est) economy.   Jonathan Farrington1, Dave Brock, [...]

Sales Hiring From a Recruiter’s Perspective

As ESR continues to assess our clients’ sales challenges, we maintain that having the wrong people in the sales jobs is, in many cases, the biggest inhibitor to the success of a training intervention.  My interview with Todd Harris of PI Worldwide highlighted one of the tools available for sales leaders to get an objective [...]

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 Economy Is Down, So It’s Webinar Time!

I’ve delivered lots of webinars over the years, working with all the well-know providers and others as well.  With only two exceptions where the audio was lost for all the participants, I’ve had very good experiences.  That’s not by accident.  My content is always relevant to the audience, I rehearse, I’m facile with the technology, [...]

Sales Meetings. Is There A Nap On Your Agenda?

Most companies we work with at one point or another ask us to review their approach to sales meetings. Many sales managers, having no idea how to run a sales meeting, just wing it.  The meetings are of little value to the reps and leave the sales managers embarrassed and often seen as incompetent in [...]

A High-Level Sales Call Gone Bad – Really Bad

Years ago I was based in Europe, opening up operations there for Datalogix International, an ERP software company.  Datalogix “wound up” in Europe after selling a large deal to a Boston-based adhesives company, Bostik.  Bostik came to us with a problem: the were being sold by their parent company, Black & Decker, and Bostik had [...]

SmartDraw. Nice!

The folks at SmartDraw sent me a review copy of their business graphics package.  I love good software.  This is good software.  I rendered that “No Sales Tips” sign in the left column in less than five minutes from an existing template.
I seem to be in sign mode these days.  The one on the right [...]

Selling Lessons From A Trumpet Lesson

It was an exciting week. I started out in St. Paul on Sunday afternoon. I was there Monday and Tuesday to attend a few meetings with a special client, deliver a few presentations, facilitate some discussions and attend their annual sales awards dinner. It was two of the best [...]

Predictive Testing For Salespeople. No Reason Not To Do It.

I’ve been a proponent of psychometric/predictive testing for salespeople for many years.  I was a non-believer until Nancy Martini, now CEO at PI Worldwide, put me through their Predictive Index and SSAT (see below) in 2001.  After I took the two tests online, Nancy emailed me the manager’s version of my results and I nearly [...]