No More Cold Calling

MAY 28, 2020

The pendulum has swung too far in the direction of superficial online communications at a time people are hungry for true personal connection.” How People, Not Technology, Seal the Deal. For the rest of us, people buy from people, not technology. We want to hug our kids, our friends, our parents … and we can’t.

Social Media 391

Social Media Referrals Cold Calling Social Selling 391

No More Cold Calling

DECEMBER 10, 2020

They griped about “kids today” and wondered what this next generation was coming to. Many of us have turned into our parents, and now we deliver the same message to our kids and our grandkids, and to the employees in our multi-generational workforce. How hypocritical is that? Entitled to Respect.

Face-to-face 421

Face-to-face Motivation Hiring Guidelines 421

No More Cold Calling

JUNE 8, 2023

Our goal was to identify urgent problems and decide how to fix them. We all had different points of view about lead generation , and conversations often got heated. I remember hearing people say that when I was young and thinking: “What in the heck does that mean?” It was a crucial skill that served us all very well.

Case Study 177

Case Study Insurance Insurance How To 177

Understanding the Sales Force

APRIL 11, 2024

I walked into the house with Dinger and a baby toad hopped in with us, snuck under the closet door and disappeared. When it disappeared into the closet, I thought about it a lot! A couple of hours later, Dinger and I were walking back into the house and I spotted it again, waiting to hop into the house with us!

Coaching 203

Coaching Decision Maker Scale Hiring 203

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 17, 2024

As much as we tire talking about the constancy of change, our jobs as sellers only exist because of change. We are trying to get our customers to change from the current products or services they are using, to our products and services. It is impossible for us to grow our business.

Lead Rank 109

Lead Rank Analysis Incentives Incentive 109

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 2, 2024

Habit 2 of Stephen Covey’s famous, “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People,” is “Start (Begin) with the end in mind.” ” Covey writes about the importance of having a destination or a goal, Knowing what we are trying to achieve forces us to focus on the things critical to achieving the goal.

Customer 111

Customer Maximizer Closing Objections 111

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 19, 2024

Can you tell me a little about the results you produced in your last role. VCs are investing and have driven our market cap to hundreds of millions. You know how important the “Rule of 40” is for our organizations, our “Rule of 40” number, based on 200% growth last year, is 50! Dave: About 40%!

Scale 110

Scale Hiring Margin Churn 110

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

We are driven to pitch our products and solutions. Our questioning and discovery strategies each have an agenda, we seek answers that enable us to pitch. We have presentations focusing on us, our products, our companies and how great we are. Somehow, our customers are lost in the process.

Customer 111

Customer Discount Negotiation ROI 111

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 26, 2023

We have endless tools and technologies, increasingly assisted by AI, enabling us to accomplish more in each hour. The goal of each of these is increasing our efficiency. ” I started in sales, about 5 years before emailing became popularized. We no longer actually have to talk to people, bots do that work for us.

Retention 126

Retention Maximizer Buying Cycle Social Media 126

Smooth Sale

APRIL 10, 2024

Photo by Geralt via Pixabay Attract the Right Job Or Clientele: How to Thrive Working in a Tough Environment Many people realize that they need to take almost any job to earn a wage. Learning new transferable skills is a confidence booster that reminds us that what we’re currently doing is not the end of our career.

How To 102

How To Benefit Motivation Lead Rank 102

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 15, 2024

Our lives seem dominated by algorithms. Many of our news feeds present content based on that which we have read and consumed in the past. Facebook, LinkedIn and other social channels are (in)famous for feeding us content based both on our interaction with the content and their insight into activity on other sites.

Trends 115

Trends Channels Intent Maximizer 115

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 22, 2024

Sometimes, I feel like a broken record talking about Customer and Business Acumen. When I talk to leaders about their GTM strategies, the focus is on products and presenting the capabilities of products. Yet these same leaders complain about the ability to connect to prospects and customers. ” Usually it’s crickets.

Customer 101

Customer Face-to-face Enterprise Enterprise 101

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. But are they asking us the right questions?

Customer 119

Customer Revelation Buying Cycle Lead Rank 119

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 25, 2024

I have to start this post with an acknowledgement and a concern about misinterpretation/misapplication of this article. We don’t have a set agenda, we talk about what we are seeing, usually it’s me whining about the state of professional selling. This post is one of the things he had me thinking about this morning.

Competition 107

Competition Customer Buying Cycle Vendor 107

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 1, 2024

We tend to spend the bulk of our time responding to people who are looking to buy. They have gone through the work of defining the problem, defining what they want to achieve, getting funding, identifying the risks, looking for solutions… And then they talk to us. Alternatively, they actually reach out, asking to talk.

Trade Show 77

Trade Show Conference Segment Groups 77

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 20, 2024

Our feeds are filled with hacks, prompts, “cheat sheets” offering things like, “What are key decision maker roles for this… ? For example, “CFOs care about these things… ” Well duhhhh! Why don’t these people already know this?” What are qualifying questions… ?

Ideal Customer Profile 114

Ideal Customer Profile Revelation Decision Maker Face-to-face 114

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

I don’t think we consciously commit to doing just good enough, I suspect it’s a gradual process that impacts so many of us. It’s not just in our business lives, but permeates all parts of our lives. We leverage technology and other means to reduce our dependency on a stable, knowledgeable workforce.

Social Media 127

Social Media Face-to-face Margin Media 127

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 9, 2024

There’s a lot of concern, wherever one turns, about AI and Robots becoming more “human.” We reflect back on movies like “Terminator,” worrying about AI and robots taking over the world. And, as a result, those human beings avoid us because we aren’t creating the meaning important to them.

Face-to-face 114

Face-to-face Analysis Intent Coaching 114

SalesLoft

MARCH 28, 2024

During the London leg of Saleslove on Tour, we sat down with Rob to hear what he had to say about how impact can drive both ways between customers and vendors, and also how that leads to success. You taught us what we didn’t know and helped us improve on what we did know. And that’s really important,” Rob shared.

Marketing Qualified Lead 90

Marketing Qualified Lead Lead Rank Sales Qualified Lead Leads 90

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 9, 2024

Workloads seem to sky rocket as do demands on our time. Distractions whether device based, app based or self inflicted consume our time. We make our work harder than it should be, then as a result find our calendars overwhelmed. We make our work harder than it should be, then as a result find our calendars overwhelmed.

Ideal Customer Profile 116

Ideal Customer Profile Face-to-face CRM Opportunity 116

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

The capabilities of the tools are evolving very quickly, our capabilities in using these tools are evolving much less quickly. I’d seek information I could use in talking to them about change. Another time, I drove an hour outside NYC to spend an afternoon with one of our research scientists.

Face-to-face 116

Face-to-face Journal Research Tools 116

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 8, 2024

Every quarter there is the inevitable rush to close deals, to hit our numbers. The global economy/turmoil and continued layoffs/reductions, and shuffling of priorities–both within our customers, markets, and within our own organizations. Yet there are so many challenges and barriers.

Top of Funnel 107

Top of Funnel Face-to-face Data Buying Cycle 107

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 8, 2024

In reading an article about the latest hints and tips in using AI for prospecting, a sentence stood out to me. It talked about how “mundane” outbound is. And, perhaps, it is this mindset that underlies the poor results we get from our prospecting. We see this in our own personal experiences, every day.

Outbound 104

Outbound Customer Service Prospecting Customer 104

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 23, 2023

To connect and engage effectively, we have to meet people where they are at. This requires us to focus on them, where they are, who they are, what they face. It requires us to listen, probe, understand. It’s something people grapple with, but it doesn’t define them. Often, however, we listen with an agenda.

Meeting 110

Meeting Face-to-face Coaching Objections 110

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 22, 2024

Unbeknownst to us, Jim and I had probably encountered each other years before. ” Another area that Jim addresses, perhaps the elephant in the room whenever we start talking about selling, “Negative sales stereotypes are a matter of character, not the profession itself.” ” Enjoy Jim’s story!

Exercises 97

Exercises Course Engineering Software 97

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

One of my favorite songs, as a kid, was Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain… ” It was not only a great song, but provoked decades of discussion about who she was singing about. Fast forwarding to current times, based on how we engage our customers, we demonstrate a similar vanity.

Engineering 108

Engineering Up-Sell Lead Rank Lead Scoring 108

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 28, 2024

We find facts and evidence that support our experience or what we want to believe. Our propensity to do this causes us, perhaps unconsciously, to defend the status quo. Ignoring this puts us at huge risk. We have a tendency to find data or others that support our position–confirmation bias.

Engineering 73

Engineering Maximizer Positioning Course 73

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 24, 2024

Properly used, with the right prompt engineering, AI can help us better understand potential issues our customers face. We can invest a lot of time in refining our prompts, feeding the LLMs reports to analyze to refine the insights provided (and these tools are supposed to save us time?). How confident are they?

Distribution 110

Distribution Lead Rank Face-to-face Analysis 110

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 12, 2024

And when we finally do reach someone, they don’t want to talk to us. They throw their preference for a Rep Free buying experience into our faces. They don’t care about what we sell, they don’t want to go through our demos-at least until they have no other alternative. Now less than 40% are doing this.

Face-to-face 107

Face-to-face Commission Up-Sell Discount 107

Smooth Sale

MARCH 19, 2024

Frequently, people who strictly focus on their work and goals (corporate leadership included) lose sight of the fact that they and the people they serve are humans. Staff not recognized as people desiring to learn and advance will soon quit corporate employment. Will You Humanize Your Effort for A Better Tomorrow?

Lead Rank 106

Lead Rank Face-to-face Hiring ACT 106

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 25, 2024

It’s easy to find excuses, to blame everyone and everything else about the lengthening sales/buying cycles. We focus on the things important to us, presenting our solutions and getting the buyer to choose us. Instead, we focus on what we care about–presenting our products and solutions.

Customer 100

Customer Buying Cycle Buyer Sales Cycle 100

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

But we attempt to make purposeful choices about how we invest our time This is what all the self-help books preach, and this is what we try to do to achieve our goals. In reality, we should only be making choices, “Is this the best use of my time at this moment?” Perhaps engaging us in a decision.

Meeting 108

Meeting Study Groups Customer 108

Smooth Sale

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

Photo by Geralt via Pixabay Attract the Right Job or Clientele: Business Growth Depends Upon The Impact We Make Individually, we each possess a unique mindset, goals, and methods for achieving our desires. But most are unaware that ‘gatekeepers’ reside within our mindset, preventing us from achieving business growth and our desires.

Hiring 106

Hiring Gatekeeper Media Benefit 106

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

It’s no surprise, we have more demands on our time than we have time to fulfill those demands. For decades, technology continues to offer ways to improve our efficiency (and every once in a while, our effectiveness–but that’s a separate post). We change our minds and our positions constantly.

Meeting 115

Meeting Customer Service Buyer Positioning 115

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 30, 2024

Each of us experiences the same thing, grumbling at the terrible quality outreach. Then, too many of us turn around and inflict bad outbound prospecting on our own victims. Nothing focuses on our priorities and our company. Until they care about it, they don’t care about it!

Face-to-face 92

Face-to-face Buying Cycle Outbound B2B 92

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 19, 2023

As sellers, we always talk about the importance of our “Unique Value Proposition.” ” For decades, we have thought about our value proposition in the context of our products/solutions. And we focused on our differentiation to determine our uniqueness.

Face-to-face 117

Face-to-face Report ROI Research 117

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 6, 2024

Second, a leadership perspective as a CRO who cares deeply about the people on the team. Third, a vision of what we and our customers achieve through working together–and isn’t that our ultimate goal as sellers? John’s thoughts resonate with me because they span several perspectives.

Retail 73

Retail Outbound Competition Motivation 73