Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 2, 2012

In some cases, that’s true, but too often, I think much of the blame rests with us–the sales person. Some sales calls where we are exchanging information with the customer–what they want, what we have, question, answer, ping, pong…… I ask, “What happened in the call?

Call-back 86

Call-back Forecasting Buying Cycle Sales Process 86

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

We struggle to get in front of customers, to find opportunities, to nurture them through the buying cycle, and, ultimately, to win. It’s not an image of optimism, both for our customers and for sales. Yet, the majority of those complex buying opportunities end in “No Decision Made.”

Customer 75

Customer Buying Cycle Intent Opportunity 75

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 30, 2013

” Creating excuses to get back into the customer is nothing but old sales mythology. All this does is lengthen the sales cycle–maybe we’re just postponing the inevitable “No,” but in the least it lengthens the sales cycle. It does nothing to serve us or the customer.

Customer 86

Customer Call-back Case Study Sales Cycle 86

Anthony Iannarino

APRIL 21, 2019

As markets are pulled in two directions , super-transactional or super-relational, the transactional approach of reducing friction, compressing the sales cycle, and eliminating as much real communication as possible is seductive. No more pushy sales tactics. In the business-to-consumer market, this is the Holy Grail.

Workbooks 84

Workbooks Lead Rank Face-to-face Fashion 84

Partners in Excellence

JULY 29, 2012

We are talking about “conventional sales wisdom,” (which I would retitle, Stupid Techniques We All Feel For). ” There were all sorts of techniques I recall being taught in my early sales training. ” There were all sorts of techniques I recall being taught in my early sales training.

Customer 86

Customer Call-back Collateral Case Study 86

Partners in Excellence

MAY 29, 2022

The question, “Why Does This Happen,” and its variants (“What causes this to occur, How does this happen, etc?”) ”) are some of the most profound questions we can pose as we look at understanding problems and opportunities. And sometimes, more works a little, until it fails totally.

Pipeline 75

Pipeline Analysis Sales Cycle Opportunity 75

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 14, 2013

The funnel/pipeline is a fundamental tool for sales professionals and managers. The problem is, when our funnels start looking a little lean and managers start hammering on sales people for the right coverage model. As a sales person, it’s pretty easy to get my manager off my back on this one.

Top of Funnel 96

Top of Funnel Funnel Pipeline Distribution 96

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 17, 2022

Just to put an emphasis on the importance of understanding why we win, why we lose, and how we maximize performance and productivity, let’s go through an example: Let’s assume 3 sales people with exactly the same quotas: $5M. But in reality, I actually find very few sales people and managers spend anytime thinking about this.

Analysis 67

Analysis Quota Maximizer Relationals 67

Partners in Excellence

JUNE 14, 2017

Regardless your level, look at your weekly calendar. Unless you are a total dolt, I can guess what it looks like: Your time is completely filled, often with overlaps in meetings, some with multiple things scheduled at the same time. The demands on your time exceed what you can schedule—and you do a lit of shifting/juggling.

Face-to-face 74

Face-to-face B2C Up-Sell Sales Cycle 74

Increase Sales

MAY 8, 2013

And once you’re there, how do you make the sale happen? C-level executives live in a time-compressed world. If you’re seeking a strategic partnership rather than a direct sale, the whole organization rallies behind the wishes of the CEO. How would that change your life, career and results? So how do you break through?

Referrals 138

Referrals ROI Journal Decision Maker 138

Sales Training Connection

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Sales process. In a McKinsey article asked a fundamental question – Is the buying cycle linear? According to a McKinsey & Co study, the traditional linear sales process – customers take in information; narrow down their choices; kick the tires, and submit the purchase order – is not really how customers buy.

Buying Cycle 120

Buying Cycle Study Sales Process Proposal 120

Hubspot Sales

APRIL 3, 2018

The same wisdom applies if you want to hit a home run in sales. Perfecting your sales cadence -- the timing and rhythm of your touchpoints with prospective customers -- can turn a so-so sales process into an awesome one. Time your outreach so it connects with and engages your prospects and you’ll increase your sales conversions.

Revenue 88

Revenue Buying Cycle Social Media Media 88

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 27, 2013

I’ve been involved in a number of conversations about my positions on Sales Forecast Accuracy recently. The Sales Forecast Is Not The Demand Plan! The demand plan is critical, but it’s not Sales responsibility. The Sales Forecast is an important component of the demand plan, so forecast accuracy is important.

Sales Forecasts 94

Sales Forecasts Forecasting Top of Funnel Buying Cycle 94

Partners in Excellence

JULY 5, 2012

For those of you with a background in Lean, TAKT Time is a familiar concept for manufacturing, but what’s the application to sales and marketing? TAKT actually comes from the German word, Taktzeit, which refers to the cycle time, beat or rhythm. Too often, sales people seem unconscious of this.

Marketing 88

Marketing Sales Cycle Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Lead 88

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 28, 2021

If we are meeting with customers, it could be agreeing on actions and next steps they, we, or together we might make in moving them through their buying cycle. We talk to prospects/customers. We meet with managers or our people. We meet with colleagues working deals with us. We meet with partners. Goals, problems they may have.

Follow-up 60

Follow-up Buying Cycle Meeting System 60

Sales Training Connection

OCTOBER 11, 2013

The importance of selling strategically is an idea repeated time and time again – the larger and more complex the sale, the louder the advice. When thinking about what it takes in a major account to formulate a winning sales strategy , a good starting point is remembering the buying environment is complex. the right message.

Account 110

Account Strategy Negotiation Pivotal 110

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 19, 2012

A strong sales process is critical to our effectiveness as sales professionals. As much as has been written about sales processes, I am constantly amazed by the number of organization that either have no process in place, their process is hopelessly outdated, or the sales people and managers don’t use the process.

Sales Process 92

Sales Process Maximizer Lead Rank Lead Scoring 92

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 21, 2013

” We get the answer then we got through the arrange a meeting time cycle. But our sales cycle has been lengthened by weeks. Go through this cycle a few times with a few people at the customer, all of a sudden our sales cycles are lengthened by months. Time is money! How do we manage this?

Call-back 89

Call-back Face-to-face Maximizer Decision Maker 89

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 20, 2019

We have to increase our win rates, increase our average deal size, compress our sales cycles, improve our prospecting, improve how we engage our customers, create great value in every interaction. I wrote, “Tilting The Numbers In Our Favor, The Tyranny Of More.” I’d like to extend that discussion.

Penetration 82

Penetration Lead Rank Maximizer Sales Qualified Lead 82

SBI

AUGUST 1, 2018

We tend to think of onboarding as a one-time event as new sales reps are hired. But we all know the reality – even with the most organized onboarding program, it’s going to take weeks of reinforcement, training, and coaching, and months before it can be determined whether a new sales rep is successful. Employee handbook?

Sales Talent 95

Sales Talent Hiring Lead Rank Handbook 95

Highspot

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

Learn how this sales method builds trust and loyalty while emphasizing value. Key Value Selling Strategies Sales Methodology for Value Selling Benefits of Value Selling How Does Value Selling Compare to Other Methodologies? Incorporating value selling into sales training can help your company stay ahead of the competition.

Lead Rank 59

Lead Rank Lead Scoring Sales Methodology Decision Maker 59

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 18, 2012

I sit in lot of reviews, managers and sales people are focused on deals at the bottom of the funnel. “How do we close this deal, what do we have to do to win, how do we get it this month? . “How do we close this deal, what do we have to do to win, how do we get it this month?”

Top of Funnel 91

Top of Funnel Funnel Coaching Churn 91

Partners in Excellence

AUGUST 27, 2012

Or I talk about sales call planning, spending time thinking about what you want to achieve so you can execute high impact sales calls. Or I talk about sales call planning, spending time thinking about what you want to achieve so you can execute high impact sales calls. What are you stopping? Do you have a cadence?

Proposal 92

Proposal Call-back Exercises Maximizer 92

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 31, 2013

Pipeline reviews and reporting are constant sources of contention between management and sales people. From a sales person’s perspective, they get no value from it, but managers need it to make sure the business in control. At it’s worst, sales people view it as a “Big Brother Is Watching Exercise.”

Pipeline 93

Pipeline Top of Funnel Revelation Sales Cycle 93

Partners in Excellence

JUNE 13, 2012

Too often, they consume too much time of front line sales people and managers–who should be increasing the time they spend with customers. Too often, they consume too much time of front line sales people and managers–who should be increasing the time they spend with customers. Clean the funnel!

Top of Funnel 85

Top of Funnel Face-to-face Funnel Report 85

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

We spend a lot of time seeking to increase pipeline velocity, compressing sales cycles, and focusing on sales velocity. In our quest for increasing sales velocity (or sales acceleration) we become separated from our customers. We are constantly driven to move faster. The first is change itself.

Top of Funnel 48

Top of Funnel Government Funnel Pipeline 48

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

One of the biggest problems sales people face is their deals slipping. We forecast a certain close date, then it slips, and slips, and slips, and …… Things keep coming up, we push the close date out, then more things come up and we get into this seemingly endless cycle until the deal closes. Here’s what happens.

Forecasting 89

Forecasting Face-to-face Closing Sales Cycle 89

Pointclear

AUGUST 16, 2012

We see things like sales cycle times compressed dramatically. Dave's firm works with clients in many verticals including technology industries, industrial products, financial and professional services, consumer products, retail, not-for-profit and other sectors. Please use the links below to listen to the audio.).

Outbound 154

Outbound Inbound Social Media Call-back 154

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 30, 2019

But we do need to meet, since we are sales people/managers, we get things done through and with other people. Sometimes when I talk to sales people about this, they are aghast, “We can’t tell our customers what we intend to accomplish… ” Wrong! We have meetings to talk about new programs or initiatives.

Follow-up 48

Follow-up Account Territories Meeting 48

Partners in Excellence

JUNE 12, 2014

As sales people and managers start assessing the gap, usually what happens is they crank up the activity levels–they double the prospecting emails, they double the calls, meetings with the thinking, “More activity produces more results.” Can we compress our sales cycle? Are our close rates too low?

Coaching 96

Coaching Meeting Sales Cycle Quota 96

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 2, 2015

Our companies spend millions in the best sales training and tools, but we don’t use them. We know our sales process represents our best practice at maximizing our ability to win, compress our sales cycle, maximize deal value and margin, but we don’t use it. So why choose mediocrity?

Margin 48

Margin Maximizer Sales Cycle Relationals 48

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 14, 2018

Sometimes, I think selling, and all the things sales people must do to be successful, is something like a jigsaw puzzle. Overlaid on this is the endless administrivia, CRM updates, dealing with all the latest sales enablement or marketing programs that are supposed to be helpful.

Jigsaw 68

Jigsaw Top of Funnel Territories Maximizer 68

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 24, 2012

If it’s a sales call, they are focused on accomplishing as much as possible–compressing their sales cycle. If it’s a manager hiring a new sales person, they have a profile of the ideal candidate, they look for those that best match that profile. Do you know where you are going?

Hiring 88

Hiring Ideal Customer Profile Maximizer Quota 88

Customer Centric Selling

MAY 11, 2016

Sales Tips: How to Differentiate Yourself with Senior Executives. Today’s reality is that development times and product cycles are getting compressed. Today I believe vendors (website, messaging and sales approach) that provide superior buying experiences are most likely to prevail. Need some help to increase sales?

Vendor 40

Vendor How To Competition Analysis 40

Partners in Excellence

JUNE 24, 2014

It’s important, but misunderstood aspect of sales effectiveness. One of the things I’ve discovered as a result of my diatribes, is many sales managers really don’t know how to reinforce the sales process in their coaching and development of their sales teams.

Sales Process 94

Sales Process Coaching Top of Funnel Follow-up 94

Customer Centric Selling

AUGUST 12, 2016

Sales Tips: Behavior Follows Belief. Back in the 1970’s, IBM was the gold standard of sales training. While brutal for the students, the end “product” was salespeople who were accustomed to high pressure selling environments who weren’t afraid to work whatever hours were necessary to successfully navigate a sell cycle.

Face-to-face 40

Face-to-face Sales Methodology Case Study Vendor 40

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 12, 2012

The sales process is the cornerstone to driving the highest levels of sales performance. There’s so much data supporting this, one would think discussing sales process should be a non issue—-every organization should continually be strengthening their process, sales people should be executing them with precision.

Sales Process 91

Sales Process Maximizer Discount Sales Cycle 91