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Sales Training Connection
MAY 22, 2013
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Sales Training Connection
Changing Role of Ortho Sales Reps
Sales Training Connection
MARCH 18, 2016
ORTHOKNOW (March 2016) shares insights from six experts on how the orthopedic sales rep role is changing – including Richard Ruff. Changing-Role-Rep_ORTHOKNOW_March-2016.
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Great sales coaching starts with receptivity
Sales Training Connection
SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
Sales coaching can make a difference, and it should be a priority. In fact, pros agree that sales coaching is a critical piece of the puzzle in developing a world-class sales team. Yet, when it comes to giving coaching feedback, most sales managers don’t do it enough. Many times it’s water off a duck’s back, and sometimes it makes matters worse. There are many reasons why giving feedback often fails to make a difference.
Trials and tribulations of new sales managers
Sales Training Connection
APRIL 12, 2017
Sales Manager. New sales managers often are promoted for their sales success – not sales management expertise. So what happens after the sales manager assumes the role and responsibilities of their new position? Too often “paperwork” like CRM systems, HR concerns, and other administrative requirements take precedence. Additionally many new sales managers are inundated by their sales team with fires to put out.
Account friend or internal champion – it matters
Sales Training Connection
MARCH 28, 2017
Internal Champion. In major B2B sales where the sales cycle is long, competition is keen and multiple players are engaged in the decision, developing internal champions is one of the more effective best practices. Why? A lot of the discussions and decisions go on when you’re not there. So if you have a champion in the room, it’s more likely you’ll have a better outcome.
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New business from existing business is smart business
Sales Training Connection
MARCH 21, 2017
Let’s assume you’re a sales manager in a highly competitive B2B market with a team of eight major account reps. You have just received an email from your VP of Sales outlining an aggressive growth strategy for the next 6 months. You’ve decided the best approach is to ask your sales reps to grow the business in their existing accounts. You have called a meeting with the sales reps to share best practices for generating new business from existing accounts.
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New sales managers – starting off on the right foot
Sales Training Connection
MARCH 1, 2017
New Sales Managers. Customers expect salespeople to know more today than ever before … and to know it at a higher level of proficiency. This difference constitutes an inflexion point. Customers now want sales reps who are trusted advisors not product facilitators. All this means that in order for a sales team to be successful in the years ahead, front-line managers need be highly skilled.
Artificial Intelligence – a last best hope for sales management coaching
Sales Training Connection
JANUARY 10, 2017
AI and Sales Management. Sales leadership talks about it all the time. Sales consultants advocate it and sales managers say they would like to do more of it. The “it” of course is sales coaching. Yet, if you nose around, you’ll find less sales coaching is occurring then might be expected given all the advocacy. Lots of companies start sales coaching initiatives but a scarce few sustain them over time.
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Making it all connect: the power of sales enablement
Sales Training Connection
DECEMBER 20, 2016
From time to time we post a guest blog written for the Sales Training Connection. Today we thought we would share with you some thoughts from Rachel Davidson of Highspot. _. Sales enablement technology helps accelerate the time towards close and gives you the power to leverage faster, better, and stronger sales best practices. At its heart, modern sales enablement exists to organize, strengthen, and drive results in these three concrete ways: Content management.
Selling at C-level and the too late-too little puzzle
Sales Training Connection
DECEMBER 14, 2016
Selling to C-Suite Puzzle. In major accounts sales success at the C-level is a “do or die” proposition. What makes it particularly challenging is “one strike and you’re out.” There’s no second chance to get it right. Successfully selling to senior executives is a book with many chapters. However, three footnotes are particularly important: When do you sell to senior executives?
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50 Virtual reality – a new day for medical product launch presentations
Sales Training Connection
NOVEMBER 17, 2016
Virtual Reality and Sales Presentations. Each year medical companies develop a dazzling array of new products. Some are minor upgrades. While others are extraordinary new products designed to be game changers or, in some cases, “bet the company” entries into the market. Unfortunately after all the market assessments, business plans, beta tests, and approvals many new medical products fail to achieve the anticipated commercial success.
Sales culture – put the horse before the cart
Sales Training Connection
OCTOBER 17, 2016
Developing a sales culture. Traditionally when talking about sales best practices, most of the emphasis has been placed on individual sales rep and sales management skill sets. But the more we have studied high performing sales teams, the more we have come to realize that the cart has often been placed before the horse. Perhaps sales teams would be even more successful if greater emphasis were initially directed towards creating a culture that drives individual excellence.
Sales training – managing a conundrum
Sales Training Connection
OCTOBER 13, 2016
Sales training. Here’s the conundrum … You have a 250 person sales team. You are a new, first time Sales Training Director. You replaced a sales manager who did no sales training for a long time. To add urgency, revenue numbers have been stagnant for too long. The VP of Sales now feels that sales training is definitely needed and it needs to be done in short order.
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Medical sales – the power of selling with clinical data
Sales Training Connection
AUGUST 9, 2016
Seling with Clinical Data. Physicians – and other prescribers – report that clinical data is increasingly important in making decisions. So, as one “moves to the other side of the table,” selling with clinical is not a “nice to learn” but instead one of those “must dos.”. Sometimes clinical data is not available. But even when it is, too many salespeople do not optimize its use during interactions with medical staff.
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A 2026 excursion to the future of sales training
Sales Training Connection
AUGUST 1, 2016
Sales Training – 2026. As a way of exploring the future of sales training, let’s time travel to the year 2026 and examine the major trends of the day. Suspending disbelief, assume you have time traveled and have arrived in the summer of 2026. You are journeying south on Highway 1 towards Big Sur in your Apple Titan 2.0. You have preprogramed your new Titan including a stop for lunch at Nepenthe.
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Transitioning to sales manager – a rubicon moment
Sales Training Connection
JULY 27, 2016
New sales managers. Congratulations! You’ve done it! You have crossed over! You are now a sales manager. So, what do you do now? Even after some initial guidance from colleagues, most new sales managers find themselves struggling to figure out how to balance the requirements of the position. The mountains of paperwork about HR concerns and other administrative requirements take most new sales managers back a step or two.
Medical sales training – something different vs. more of the same
Sales Training Connection
JULY 19, 2016
Medical sales training. From time to time entire industries go through dramatic changes driven by forces that are disruptive in scope and scale. Today the healthcare industry is a prime example. Most healthcare organizations are uncertain about the best strategic path forward. However, what is clear is standing still is not an option. Moving forward the challenge will be about how to reinvent versus how to improve.
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50 Sales training: it isn’t about – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it
Sales Training Connection
JUNE 1, 2016
Sales Training Investment. It is also not about the elapsed time since you last did it. The strategic “it” in this case is the decision about whether you should make an investment in sales training. If you traveled back in time and drop in on some of the conversations about sales training, you might hear: “We are not knocking the ball out of the park but things are okay plus we have a lot of other things going on so let’s think about that sales training thing next year” or “We just did some t
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Sales training myopia of tech start-ups
Sales Training Connection
MAY 18, 2016
Sales Training and Start-ups. Why do some start-ups make it and some don’t? As one might suspect, given the staggering number of start-ups formed every year, there is no shortage of information on critical success factors. Some common ones are: Timing, working capital, and the leadership team. In addition, the ability to develop and sustain a viable growth plan is seen as one of the more difficult and tricky success factors.
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How to optimize your sales training investment
Sales Training Connection
MAY 4, 2016
Sales Training Investment. How much money are companies spending on sales training? And is it enough to worry about whether or not one is optimizing the investment? This, as they say, is the easy part. The answer to the first question is a lot; the answer to the second question is – yes. Companies spend a hefty amount of money – so yes, it is worth worrying about.
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50 Medical sales reps – what do they like most and least about their jobs
Sales Training Connection
APRIL 28, 2016
Medical device sales reps. Ever wonder what medical sales reps like most about their jobs? MassDevice reported the findings from a survey of more than 1,400 sales reps in the 2016 Best Places to Work in Medical Sales survey. Take a look at what they found: 72% of those responding were satisfied or very satisfied with their job. Nonetheless, about one-half said they were actively seeking a new job.
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50 Don’t lose sales you should win – connect the dots
Sales Training Connection
APRIL 13, 2016
Winning sales – connect the dots. Often a sale is lost even when the solution is a good fit because the salesperson fails to make the connection between the solution and the customer needs. The seller gets Step 1 right – they develop a good understanding of the customer’s needs. They also provide a good description of the solution so Step 2 is okay.
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50 Evolution of sales strategy
Sales Training Connection
APRIL 6, 2016
Sales Strategy – Stop, Pause, Reassess. A sales manager recently finished sales strategy reviews for the top 20 accounts in her geography. She told me, “Let’s not talk about the quality of the sales strategies – some were great and some not so much. I expected that. What I didn’t expect were the stories about how the sales reps executed their sales strategies.”.
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Trends in the world of sales – podcast
Sales Training Connection
MARCH 23, 2016
Podcast – Sales Trends. Recently I had the pleasure of being a guest on Andy Paul’s great interview series – Accelerate! – that explores the world of sales. The topics we covered ranged from the merits of account based selling to the success factors for implementing sales models such as SPIN selling. We thought you might enjoy tuning in – Dial up the interview at.
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50 Sales excellence and the comfort zone freeze
Sales Training Connection
JANUARY 27, 2016
Sometimes great short-term sales success can be a bad predictive of future sales excellence. Let’s take a look at why that might be and examine the consequences. There are a number of market and company specific reasons why this troubling dilemma tends to materialize at various times. In most cases when these factors are the source of the problem, sales reps has very limited ability to manage and correct the problem.
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Sales training for meeting buyers’ expectations in 2016
Sales Training Connection
JANUARY 13, 2016
Recent years have seen a tremendous disruption in how customers buy. And if buyers change how they buy – salespeople need to change how they sell. Customers want fresh ideas and creative insights for addressing a set of needs and opportunities that are both new and challenging. They expect sales reps to be knowledgeable about their industry, company, and issues at a higher level of proficiency than ever before.
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50 Beating the competition in an undifferentiated market
Sales Training Connection
JANUARY 6, 2016
When is selling the most fun? Certainly when you have a superior product. Perhaps it’s even a “killer product”, like the Xerox copier vs. the mimeo machine. Unfortunately with global competition and advanced manufacturing technologies, those days are rare and if they do occur they are difficult to sustain. Today even when you have a superior product a competitor is likely come out with one that is just as good or better than yours in half the time of yesteryear.
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Happy New Year!
Sales Training Connection
JANUARY 1, 2016
Wishing you a successful sales year. Keep an eye on the Sales Training Connection for new ideas that may help you improve your sales performance. To a smashing 2016, Janet and Richard.
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50 Sales training – too important to be owned exclusively by training
Sales Training Connection
DECEMBER 17, 2015
Sales reps need to know more and their knowledge must be at a higher level of proficiency today than ever before. To be among the emerging winners, sales reps must not only be able to sell a competitive advantage; they must be a competitive advantage. They must bring value to the customer by the way they “sell” as well as by what they sell. All this means that sales training has moved closer to center stage and the spotlight is a little bit brighter than in yesteryear.
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Bridging the abyss – From sales rep to sales manager
Sales Training Connection
DECEMBER 2, 2015
Transition from Sales Rep to Sales Manager. Congratulations! You were a top salesperson. Now, you’re a newly appointed sales manager. The good news is you have the pivotal job for improving the sales effectiveness of your organization. The bad news – many perils and pitfalls are lurking in the shadows. Let’s take a look at 7 best practices for making the transition from sales rep to sales manager a little bit easier.
Happy Thanksgiving
Sales Training Connection
NOVEMBER 25, 2015
Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving holiday … and for many a long weekend filled with fun, football, and perhaps some shopping, too.
50 Happy Halloween
Sales Training Connection
OCTOBER 30, 2015
Ghosts and goblins galore. Tricky witches at your door. This is the time for spooks and bats. Halloween spirits and black cats. But don’t forget nifty treats … and to fill up on some sweets! Happy Halloween to all!
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Getting sales process right
Sales Training Connection
OCTOBER 28, 2015
Whether or not you have put in place a sales process – it is happening everyday. It is whatever your salespeople are doing Monday morning to navigate the customer’s buying process. The real problem is not, therefore, a lack of sales process. The problem is too many companies do not systematically manage and evaluate their sales process. In today’ markets buyers are changing how they buy but sales organizations often fail to adjust and adapt their sales process to the new reality.
Sales excellence – put the horse before the cart
Sales Training Connection
OCTOBER 21, 2015
Sales excellence. Major account selling is truly a highly skilled and information-intense profession. Just like any highly skilled profession one must not only master skills; you must also understand the principles upon which success is built. In major account selling, the most important underlying principle is the following – sell the problem before you sell the solution – the horse must be in front of the cart.
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50 Happy Labor Day!
Sales Training Connection
SEPTEMBER 7, 2015
Happy Labor Day to all of our Sales Training Connection readers. We wish you a strong sales finish to 2015. Janet and Dick. Technorati Tags: sales training articles , sales training blogs.
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Product pitches – nothing dies harder than a bad idea
Sales Training Connection
AUGUST 17, 2015
Product sales pitches. If you are an avid reader of sales blogs, it’s likely you will come across three or four blogs a week about the secret sauce for creating a winning product pitch. If sales blogs had been around 25 years ago, you would have encountered even more of them because the product pitch has been around for a very long time. Way back when, companies spent an inordinate amount of time crafting product pitches for their major product offerings.
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Medical sales – there is no back to the future
Sales Training Connection
AUGUST 4, 2015
MedTech Sales. Constant change has always characterized the business world – so looking in the rear view mirror has never been an ideal strategy for determining future direction. Yet, from time to time the scale and speed of the changes are so large and so fast that they can only be described as disruptive. Today’s medical sales industry is a case in point.
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50 Sales reps – don’t forget to follow-up!
Sales Training Connection
MAY 29, 2015
Sales reps much follow up! We’ve been interviewing several MedTech sales managers this past week. One question we posed was: What do you think are the keys to a sales rep’s success? The first answer we heard was “follow-up” We smiled … MedTech and other B2B customers we’ve surveyed over the years have universally told us that what was most important to them in a salesperson is, “do what you said you will do” – or in other words, follow-up … keep your promises.
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Happy Memorial Day
Sales Training Connection
MAY 25, 2015
Wishing all of our readers a Happy Memorial Day. Janet and Dick.
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Sales success in an age of disruptive change
Sales Training Connection
MAY 20, 2015
Sales Success. Constant change has always characterized the business world. Looking in the rear view mirror has never been a recommended strategy for determining future direction. However, from time to time the nature of the change takes on a different look. The scale and speed of the changes during these periods can truly be labeled disruptive. In the early 19 th century the Industrial Revolution changed everything.
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50 Sales success – reducing risk is as important as selling value
Sales Training Connection
MAY 18, 2015
Reduce risk – Sell value. Major account sales occur in a dynamic business environment with multiple players, long buying processes, and complex solutions. In this market everybody gets it. You can’t win by just pitching products; you have to sell value. Selling value is about helping the customer understand how you can help them achieve their business goals.
An age of disruption – salespeople need to change now and change fast
Sales Training Connection
MAY 15, 2015
Sellers need to change now. Are you ready? According to Bain & Company, B2B sales executives have seen tremendous disruption in recent years – and there’s no reason to think it won’t continue. Today buyers are often well into their buying process before they even initiate conversations with sellers. Companies have researched the competitive options, eliminated a few and have become informed about the products and services of the remaining alternatives.
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Sales success – a different take on winners and losers
Sales Training Connection
MAY 4, 2015
Sales rep winners and losers. Whether in sports, politics, business or sales, this question is always on the table – What is the difference between winners and losers? Many people spend lots of time and effort trying to determine what the difference is between those people who win and those who lose. Rosabeth Moss Kanter addressed just this topic in Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Being and End.
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Pipeline management – not all business is good business
Sales Training Connection
APRIL 22, 2015
'Good vs. Bad Business. Sales reps are always looking for that next big opportunity and justifiably so. But while all new big opportunities initially look great – be cautious! All “bright shiny objects” aren’t good opportunities. In major B2B sales it is critical early on to distinguish between an account that represents good and bad business. The larger the opportunity the more important it is to get it right.
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