Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 18, 2024

One of the sellers asked a question about dealing with customer questions and queries about the products, particularly deeply technical questions. Customers asking us about the product capabilities, drilling deeply into what the products and solutions do. They don’t know how to buy. Have they done their homework?

Customer 119

Customer Revelation Buying Cycle Lead Rank 119

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 16, 2024

We know what we have to do, and, for the most part, each of us is well intended–we really want to do the things that cause us, our customers, and our companies to be successful. We’ve got to be customer focused. We’ve got to retain and grow our customers. I contribute my fair share to the clutter.)

Top of Funnel 103

Top of Funnel Funnel Pipeline Exercises 103

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 25, 2024

In this post, I’m going to make the argument, that based on what I see in too many selling initiatives, is that we, as a community, have migrated from focusing on helping customers solve their problems to just beating the competition. While we claim to want to help the customer solve their problems, we aren’t.

Competition 107

Competition Customer Buying Cycle Vendor 107

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 3, 2023

My friend, Hank Barnes, is rethinking the buying process with a fascinating concept he calls The Advantage Factor. ” It’s related to much of what I’ve written about Inciting Customers To Change. Too often, sellers catch customers who are very late in their buying cycle. What’s it take to do this?

Buying Cycle 117

Buying Cycle Up-Sell Opportunity Google 117

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 9, 2024

What if we tried simplifying, for ourselves, our people, our organizations, and our customers? Define, as Hank Barnes suggests, your UCP ( Unacceptable Customer Profile ) and banish them from all outreach and pipelines. Define and execute a selling process aligned with your customer buying process.

Ideal Customer Profile 116

Ideal Customer Profile Face-to-face CRM Opportunity 116

Zoominfo

JULY 27, 2023

Accurate data is essential for B2B personalization since customers aren’t explicitly telling you about themselves or their key challenges ahead of time. You can also receive real-time alerts to know which companies in your total addressable market are ready to buy and what messaging will be most relevant to them now.

Account Based Marketing 246

Account Based Marketing Scale Data Strategy 246

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 24, 2023

Then you have people like me saying, “You have to be helpful to your customers, you have to create value in their buying process!” ” The reaction, when I start talking about being helpful and creating value is an understandable, “Dave, you don’t understand, I have to make my quota!

Quota 100

Quota Ideal Customer Profile Face-to-face Commission 100

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 30, 2024

But unless the prospect is very late in their buying process, product/solution focused prospecting is unlikely to catch their attention. We talk about the problems our products and solutions solve… ” But this isn’t the issue many customers face. 100% of the prospecting messages I see are product focused.

Face-to-face 92

Face-to-face Buying Cycle Outbound B2B 92

Understanding the Sales Force

JUNE 12, 2023

Your prospects and customers use a similar process for choosing who to buy from. Yesterday, while watching our son play in a summer collegiate baseball game, I missed a step and tumbled all the way down the bleachers. Isn’t that a great analogy for what happens when you miss, or skip a crucial step in the sales process?

Prospecting 156

Prospecting Vendor Proposal Sales Process 156

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 6, 2023

We get the Discovery process wrong–period, full stop. They refrain from pitching a solution until they understand the problem the customer is experiencing and their “needs” in solving the problem. It assumes the customer understands the problem. And this is where customers struggle the most.

Face-to-face 107

Face-to-face Buying Cycle Customer Positioning 107

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

Fast forwarding to current times, based on how we engage our customers, we demonstrate a similar vanity. We think our customer care about us–they obsess about our companies, our products, and how great we are. Sellers obsessed in understanding what our prospects and customers think about us, our companies, and our solutions.

Engineering 108

Engineering Up-Sell Lead Rank Lead Scoring 108

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 7, 2024

Carlos nets it out, “Selling is helping.” ” But he also goes further, talking about selling forces us to be students–constantly learning about our customers and our own organizations. I believe the experience of being in both roles has helped me be a better marketer and also better in sales.

Up-Sell 108

Up-Sell Intent Call-back Positioning 108

SalesProInsider

JULY 13, 2022

If you’re selling to others the way that you want to buy – stop it! The way you want to buy doesn’t matter. It’s about how THEY want and need to buy. But that should be the key message that you’ve taken away from this series, Convert Consistently with Customs and Connections. Strong statement for sure.

Customer 117

Customer Lead Rank Buyer Call-back 117

Zoominfo

MAY 23, 2023

It’s enough to ruin any sales professional’s quarter: that prospect your team has spent months engaging — scheduling demos, addressing concerns, comparing features — suddenly decides they’re not ready to buy after all. You can’t stop every account from getting cold feet or misreading their company’s appetite for new solutions.

Intent Data 130

Intent Data Intent Account Data 130

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 7, 2020

It measures your progress through the sales process, but not a propensity to buy. Perhaps, your stages have been adjusted to focus on the “buying journey.” ” And it will present a series of logical activities your customer completes in their process. .” Right now, open up your CRM system.

Customer 122

Customer Proposal Negotiation Forecasting 122

Partners in Excellence

MAY 30, 2023

We may have “invented” a customer buying process that aligns with our desired process–Defining Problems, Identifying Alternatives, Identifying Needs, Assessing Alternatives, Choosing A Vendor. It hasn’t changed since I started selling, despite all the data showing us customers don’t buy that way.

Face-to-face 104

Face-to-face Proposal Hiring Quota 104

Partners in Excellence

JULY 21, 2023

I, and so many others, write constantly about how buying is changing and how sellers (sales and marketing) must change to respond to these changes. I, and others, cite data about customers. Several years ago, Gartner started publishing data on customer preferring “Rep-free” buying experiences.

Customer 75

Customer Prospecting Revelation Trade Show 75

Anne Miller

JULY 15, 2023

Here is how Chris Freeman, a sales manager who found himself in this situation, overcame these challenges– with the help of metaphors and analogies. Calling it “A thousand songs in your pocket,” an image they could understand, was what made people rush out to buy it.] You are the sales manager of this tech firm.

Up-Sell 117

Up-Sell Relationals Prospecting Energy 117

Alice Heiman

JANUARY 24, 2023

They are so willing to share their story in the spirit of helping others. You need to stop and map your buyer’s journey and adjust your strategy and tactics to meet that. You need to understand what your customer wants, how they want to buy and meet them where they are. Just doing more of the same doesn’t cut it.

Cold Calling 128

Cold Calling Guarantee Networking Lead Generation 128

Partners in Excellence

JUNE 8, 2021

Way back, in the old days, we created value for our customers by educating them about new products and solutions. The way customers learned about new things and how they might solve problems or addressed new opportunities was largely interactions with sales people. The value we created was educating them about products and services.

Face-to-face 125

Face-to-face Education Trade Show Channels 125

Smooth Sale

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

This strategic marketing tool, if utilized correctly, can significantly enhance your business’s profitability and customer engagement. POP displays are strategically placed promotional materials or advertising graphics where the customer makes a buying decision. ’ Why Point-of-Purchase POP Displays Are Effective?

Hiring 102

Hiring Retail Advertising Advertising 102

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 17, 2023

I know it’s an absurd concept–selling the way our customers want to buy. I don’t read of anyone doing the market research, no projects, where we go to our customers, asking questions, “How do you want to buy? How can we be most helpful when you are looking to buy? You waste our time!

Customer 80

Customer Trends Buyer Study 80

Smooth Sale

MARCH 10, 2024

Intense competition in the business-to-business (B2B) landscape often makes it challenging for brands to win potential customers. Our collaborative blog offers ideas to help improve your B2B business sales. __ Increase B2B Sales 1. Therefore, consider providing them with the requisite training and equipment to help increase sales.

B2B 102

B2B Top of Funnel How To Sales Qualified Lead 102

Alice Heiman

JULY 2, 2021

If you aren’t leading, let me help you understand why CEOs must lead sales. The biggest role of the CEO needs to be shifting the culture so everyone is focused on the success of the customer. Stop Leading Sellers and Start Leading Sales. Make sales easier for your team by making it easier for your customer to buy.

Lead Rank 156

Lead Rank Leads Marketing Qualified Lead Competition 156

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 12, 2024

The enduring truth of the statement “ people buy from people they know, like, and trust” remains a constant in the realm of sales. Are they genuinely curious to learn more about the prospects business and how they can help support strategic priorities? Do they provide guidance that makes the buying process easier?

Sales 90

Sales Software Software SalesForce 90

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 8, 2024

At times I’ve been asked for help in areas outside of what I was selling. To be trusted in this way let me know the customer knew I was invested in their success. In high school I worked at a sporting goods retailer, managing bicycle parts and accessory buying. Selling is the flip side of buying. I could do that.

Retail 73

Retail Hotels Journal Sales Qualified Lead 73

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 5, 2023

While we were working on a specific project and talking about a major transformation initiative, all of a sudden it struck me that we face the same thing in selling and understanding the customer decisionmaking process. ” We are trained to pummel the customer with questions: Who is the decisionmaker? What should I be looking at?

Face-to-face 96

Face-to-face Buying Cycle B2B Customer 96

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 17, 2020

Complex B2B buying is never easy. I’ve written, extensively, about how difficult it is for buyers to align diverse priorities and agendas, and navigate the buying process. The majority of buying ends in no decision made. We know we have to help customers make sense of what they face and what they’d like to achieve.

Face-to-face 107

Face-to-face Sales Talent Up-Sell Customer 107

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

We prospect to find potential opportunities, we qualify some with the idea the prospect is interested in buying our products. Once we have those identified, we propose, presenting our solution then, ideally, move the customer into closing and getting the purchase order. We may create our versions of their buying process.

Sales Process 122

Sales Process Customer Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Lead 122

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Buyers struggle doing their “jobs” ……buying! We know 60% of committed buying processes end in no decision made. For those that make a decision, we know there is a high level of decision regret, particularly with those who have rep-free buying experiences (Thanks to Hank Barnes’ research).

Buyer 93

Buyer Face-to-face Proposal Up-Sell 93

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 2, 2024

While his time was probably better spent talking to customers, he took time to have a great conversation. The someone is the customer. To be a great sales person, you have to connect with the customer. Even deeper, connecting means that you are personally invested in helping them get what they want.

Eloqua 73

Eloqua Sales Talent Up-Sell Promotion 73

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 1, 2021

We prospect to find potential opportunities, we qualify some with the idea the prospect is interested in buying our products. Once we have those identified, we propose, presenting our solution then, ideally, move the customer into closing and getting the purchase order. We may create our versions of their buying process.

Sales Process 118

Sales Process Customer Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Lead 118

Partners in Excellence

JUNE 22, 2020

Sales people don’t seem to be managing the process, they are responding to what the customer is doing (or not doing). This is particularly frightening, when one recognizes customers don’t know how do buy, they wander through the buying process, going back and forth, starting and stopping, changing direction, getting lost.

Call-back 138

Call-back Coaching Sales Process Relationals 138

Grant Cardone

NOVEMBER 13, 2020

Then when you’re ready to deliver your customers will be not only ready to buy, they’ll be in a hurry to buy. Customers have always shopped around before buying. If you want to be the customer’s first, last and only stop, you need to have an inventory and price structure which allows you to make multiple offers.

Scale 163

Scale Promotion Marketing Qualified Lead Follow-up 163

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

When we engage our customers in discussing opportunities, we know it’s critical to understand “why.” We are much more effective when we understand what’s driving the customer and we align our strategies around helping the customer navigate the change initiative. What are they trying to achieve?

Customer 123

Customer B2B Relationals Buyer 123

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 15, 2022

We design it to be a relatively linear progression of activities we undertake with the customer. Despite knowing the customer buying process is very squishy and wandering, we design our processes to be relatively rigid, rigid to the point of being highly scripted. Second, we have outdated views of the sales process.

Sales Process 81

Sales Process Face-to-face Sales Relationals 81

Hubspot Sales

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

Thankfully, there are tactics you can use to encourage buy-in from your prospects. He says, “Allow them the opportunity to say no, but get buy-in to the idea that if the price works for both parties, they would be willing to accept it today.” This tactic, compounded with showing product or service value, helps close deals.

Sales Qualified Lead 100

Sales Qualified Lead Lead Rank Lead Scoring Real Estate 100