Partners in Excellence

MAY 1, 2024

Andy Paul and I were having what I’ve labeled “The Old Fart Conversations About Selling.” ” Neither of us feel we are out of touch with modern selling, the challenges both buyers and sellers face. But every once in a while we get on a call to discuss “What’s happening in selling?”

Revelation 108

Revelation Lead Gen Scale Face-to-face 108

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. ” But, we shouldn’t be shocked or surprised.

Top of Funnel 110

Top of Funnel Face-to-face Data Buying Cycle 110

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

“Discovery” has been an important part of the sales process ever since I started selling (Yes, that was back when we had first chipped a wheel out of stone.) In all our training, we’ve gotten playbooks, done role plays, and learned how to conduct discovery and what questions we should be asking the customer.

B2B 104

B2B Up-Sell Customer Data 104

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 6, 2024

Too often, there is an alignment challenge between what buyers need and what sellers do. We seem to be on diverging paths, and this creates problems for both buyers and sellers. What don’t buyers need from sellers? They don’t need a lot of education about our products. What do our customers need?

Buyer 123

Buyer Incentives Incentive Discount 123

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 114

Customer Discount Negotiation ROI 114

Partners in Excellence

MAY 8, 2024

It’s always a bummer to show up late to the party. Desperately, we try to find someone to talk to, something interesting to talk about, but…… It seems so much of “modern” selling looks like this. But we don’t understand what has happened. It’s so much simpler that way.

Buying Cycle 68

Buying Cycle Maximizer Call-back Sales Cycle 68

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 18, 2024

It’s SKO season, yesterday I was leading a discussion with a great sales team. One of the sellers asked a question about dealing with customer questions and queries about the products, particularly deeply technical questions. As we spoke, it struck me how we revel in these questions.

Customer 122

Customer Revelation Buying Cycle Lead Rank 122

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 25, 2024

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. I’m afraid too many people will latch onto that concept and miss the real point of this post which is the revenue/growth potential we lose.

Competition 110

Competition Customer Buying Cycle Vendor 110

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 30, 2024

It’s Monday morning, I’ve just cleared my email and social feeds. Then, too many of us turn around and inflict bad outbound prospecting on our own victims. Can I show you what results you might realize…” Sometimes, the product pitches are thinly veiled by a problem: “Is lead/demand gen a problem for you?

Face-to-face 94

Face-to-face Buying Cycle Outbound B2B 94

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 21, 2023

As our conversations often go, we were talking about the state of selling and how we improve. The conversation got me thinking about the issue: “Our customers desperately need help, but do we want to be helpful, do we know how to be helpful? Do we want to provide that help?

Customer 115

Customer Face-to-face Buying Cycle Loyalty 115

Force Management

DECEMBER 14, 2023

When executed well, your channel program will decrease the cost of a sale, improve reach into new markets, and grow overall seller capacity without increasing internal headcount. However, backing your program with the right resources will be critical to its success. How do we specifically solve these problems with your solution? •

Channels 137

Channels Revenue How To Case Study 137

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 11, 2024

ChatGPT and its colleagues are, too often, a debilitating cheat for sellers who don’t want to put in the work. There, I said it, I got it off my chest. Hacks for structuring and measuring an entire sales organization. The key reasons that would drive a customer to change. Or any market or industry.

Ideal Customer Profile 111

Ideal Customer Profile Face-to-face Engineering Industry 111

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 5, 2024

Some have run multi-billion sales organizations and companies, some are managing their own territories selling millions a year. They disqualify deals that aren’t in their sweet spot, they are driven to use their and their customers’ time well. At the same time, they are viciously focused on doing the work.

Sports 110

Sports Territories Maximizer Industry 110

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 26, 2023

We never have enough. And regardless what we do, we never will. Whatever time we tend free up, is immediately filled with something else and we become time poor, once again. We have endless tools and technologies, increasingly assisted by AI, enabling us to accomplish more in each hour.

Retention 130

Retention Maximizer Buying Cycle Social Media 130

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 14, 2023

It’s interesting to see continued predictions of the death of selling. Others see the preference of buyers for rep-free buying experiences and digital buying processes as evidence that selling is no longer necessary. I never read procurement articles suggesting the death of sales. Hmmm, what am I missing?

Retail 115

Retail Scale Margin Promotion 115

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 22, 2024

Sometimes, I feel like a broken record talking about Customer and Business Acumen. Speaking to sales enablement executives, fewer than 10% have any sort of business acumen programs in place. Yet these same leaders complain about the ability to connect to prospects and customers. I ask: “How does your customer make money?”

Customer 104

Customer Face-to-face Enterprise Enterprise 104

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 111

Engineering Up-Sell Lead Rank Lead Scoring 111

Hubspot Sales

MARCH 4, 2024

Welcome to “The Pipeline” — a weekly column from HubSpot, featuring actionable advice and insight from real sales leaders. This week‘s post comes from five winners of HubSpot’s Modern Sales Leader 25 award. 5 Pieces of Advice All Sales Leaders Need to Know in 2024 1. 5 Pieces of Advice All Sales Leaders Need to Know in 2024 1.

Lead Rank 111

Lead Rank Construction Hubspot Lead Scoring 111

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… ? What are qualifying questions… ? What are trends… ? How do I handle objections… ?” ” I take these hacks, trying them out myself.

Ideal Customer Profile 118

Ideal Customer Profile Revelation Decision Maker Face-to-face 118

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 17, 2024

We talked about some fascinating concepts: Mis-diagnosis and Missed-diagnosis. So much opportunity is lost, both for sellers and customers, because of diagnostic problems. But each requires different approaches with our customers. This article will focus on Missed-Diagnosis, or inciting customers to change.

Face-to-face 110

Face-to-face Opportunity Education Customer 110

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, for instance, ask it for issues facing certain roles. We can ask it to look at certain industries/markets, or types of companies. The LLMs will provide ideas, insights.

Distribution 113

Distribution Lead Rank Face-to-face Analysis 113

Partners in Excellence

MAY 22, 2023

We use discovery to understand the customer’s needs, problems, requirements. We use discovery to understand the capabilities they seek in looking at solutions. Qualification enables us to understand that the customer is committed to making a change and they have a strong interest in our solutions.

Proposal 115

Proposal Education Resources Customer 115

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 4, 2023

I think, “Why do we revel in achieving our quotas and scaling goals, when we could be doing so much more?” ” If we achieve our growth/revenue goals, we think we are doing well. Too often, however, we could/should be doing much better. Yet they fail!

Opportunity 112

Opportunity Scale Revelation Quota 112

Smooth Sale

APRIL 17, 2024

It doesn’t matter who you are or the number of resources you have; we only have 24 hours each day, and we all need to use them differently! As such, managing a company entirely on your own is one of the most challenging tasks to embrace, and embracing it is crucial! How Much Time Do You Have?

Outsourcing Services 122

Outsourcing Services Real Estate Hiring Policies 122

Hubspot Sales

JANUARY 4, 2024

Having a bad sales month? Nobody is answering the phone and emails, and it seems like your prospects are falling off the face of the Earth. It's official: You’re in a slump. It's official: You’re in a slump. However, it's not the slump itself that really matters, but what we do to address it.

Top of Funnel 112

Top of Funnel How To Hubspot Forecasting 112

SalesLoft

APRIL 8, 2024

The best reason for adopting a new sales technology is to find a solution to your organization’s pain points. That’s exactly what Ron Greer , VP of Worldwide Inside Sales at OpenText , wanted for his team. It was a challenge for them to figure out what was really working and what wasn’t.

Inside Sales 86

Inside Sales Face-to-face Campaigns Exact 86

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Eventually, I figured it out. “Why does your lock screen look so different, can I do that?” All of us have similar technology stories we have an older version of an app or operating system, to get the function we need for the latest greatest things, we have to upgrade to the current version.

Face-to-face 94

Face-to-face System Tools Up-Sell 94

Smooth Sale

MAY 8, 2024

Not only do you have a shoestring budget and perhaps are learning the full ropes of your business for the first time, but you also need to know how to convey who you are to arouse interest. Luckily, this process is achievable, and planning upfront can work in your favor, allowing you to be flexible and adaptable.

Benefit 91

Benefit Ideal Customer Profile Promotion Hiring 91

Shari Levitin

AUGUST 23, 2023

Recently, I was cleaning out my junk drawer in our kitchen, and it got me thinking… How had I accumulated notepads, taco sauce packets, and broken door handles from my great aunt’s apartment? Then, it occurred to me that our junk drawers provide a perfect metaphor for how we sell. I think not). The problem?

Workbooks 118

Workbooks Decision Maker Case Study Sales 118

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 24, 2023

When I read my feeds or listen to a lot of “experts,” the focus is always on hitting our quotas, maxing our commissions, achieving our goals. Listening to sales executives, the focus is, constantly, making your numbers. And then there are the consequences of not doing so.

Quota 103

Quota Ideal Customer Profile Face-to-face Commission 103

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 5, 2023

Recently, working with a client, we were talking about a major change initiative. I asked the question, “How will you be making a decision on how do implement this initiative?” ” There was an awkward silence, the CEO eventually said, “I don’t know…… What should I be doing?

Face-to-face 98

Face-to-face Buying Cycle B2B Customer 98

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 14, 2024

We see a lot of uncertainty. We struggle with the idea, is there light at the end of the tunnel? How do we survive (though some real leaders are asking themselves how we thrive.) How do we survive (though some real leaders are asking themselves how we thrive.) Time to face reality.

Face-to-face 114

Face-to-face Lead Rank Lead Scoring Churn 114

Hubspot Sales

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

How do you go from putting out fires to running like a well-oiled machine? But being busy doesn’t leave time for thinking strategically, nurturing customer relationships, or making sure your team has everything they need — especially if your company is growing at lightning speed. What’s the backstory? The story is pretty cool.

Hiring 112

Hiring Hubspot Forecasting Up-Sell 112

Janek Performance Group

MAY 8, 2024

B2B sales negotiations are a delicate dance between two parties. Rather, it’s fostering long-term partnerships built on trust and collaboration. Sales negotiations are tough. In fact, 6Sense notes 36% of sales reps cite closing as the most difficult step in a sales process. Of course, this isn’t always easy.

Negotiation 62

Negotiation Decision Maker Objections Lead Rank 62

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

I suspect it’s human nature to constantly be in search of short cuts. We want to get a desired outcome without doing all the work one would normally have to do to achieve that outcome. Imagine how I could waste that time doing something else… ” Or, I tend to be an impatient driver.

Discount 123

Discount Pipeline Opportunity Tools 123

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

We’ve long known (whether we use it or not) about the “sales process.” ” Virtually every organization has some variant of a sales process with stages we move through and, possibly, critical activities we should be executing within each stage.

Sales Process 125

Sales Process Customer Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Lead 125

Smooth Sale

MARCH 20, 2024

CC0 Licensed Image Courtesy of Pexels Attract the Right Job Or Calendar: It’s Time To Enhance Business Growth With Technological Changes Technological business changes are a given in today’s world. From construction yards to FinTech, advancements are required for health and safety, meeting customer expectations, and staying relevant.

Hiring 106

Hiring Retail Lead Rank System 106