Sales 2.0

APRIL 27, 2014

If you spend your pursuing “account A” because you won’t accept that they told you there is not a fit then you can’t spend that time on prospecting for some new accounts where there may be a great fit for your product. Gathering all that information and packaging it for your prospect can take a big chunk out of your sales week.

Lead Scoring 268

Lead Scoring Lead Rank Proposal Gatekeeper 268

Cincom Smart Selling

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Quote and proposal software has generated a lot of buzz. Postings on social media, commentary from industry analysts, as well as user and vendor blog posts and white papers, all offer advice and information about automating the quote and proposal functions within the enterprise. Price, sophistication, and performance widely vary.

Proposal 48

Proposal Software Software Scale 48

Understanding the Sales Force

APRIL 17, 2013

It led to a significant number of comments with one of them being this question: "Dave, in your opinion, with all the training that is available and has been delivered to sales people over the years, how come sales people still fail at executing an effective approach to qualifying a prospect. This is not a DIYS project!

Decision Maker 269

Decision Maker Consultative Selling Buying Cycle Proposal 269

Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 14, 2014

If a modern-day sales process is milestone-centric (key outcomes that must be achieved during a sales cycle), then a modern-day sales methodology must support those milestones. As sales processes go, the steps could be as simple as the following: Appointment. This is a horribly designed sales process! Negotiation.

Sales Methodology 271

Sales Methodology Negotiation Proposal Analysis 271

Score More Sales

FEBRUARY 20, 2013

From a personal standpoint, I once lost a position running a corporate university because, in part, some of the C-level team felt it was too focused on “soft skills” See if any of these sound familiar for you or someone on the sales team: Discounting and getting price shopped – lack of self-regard or assertiveness.

Decision Maker 234

Decision Maker Proposal Lead Rank Influencer 234

Understanding the Sales Force

NOVEMBER 3, 2014

While that''s the case with technology, it doesn''t vary too much from that in non technology sales where most people believe that sales success boils down to one of two things; either a critical mass of meetings, or a proposal or quote. I''m sure I''ve missed a few but you get the gist.

Sales Methodology 215

Sales Methodology Inbound Decision Maker Consultative Selling 215

SBI Growth

AUGUST 22, 2013

Analysis - the candidate studies the data provided, does independent research and determines the prospect''s needs. It follows the format of your typical sales proposal. Presentation - the candidate presents the proposal to a Review Panel that consists of the hiring manager, HR and an objective 3rd party.

Hiring 300

Hiring Proposal Exercises Lead Rank 300

No More Cold Calling

FEBRUARY 11, 2016

But those methods will only treat the symptoms, not the real sales management problem: a lack of proper planning. It’s similar to the conversations most sales reps have with prospects. Sales management: Listen up. It’s your sales team’s expertise in defining and communicating prospects’ problems.

Sales Management 120

Sales Management Scale Cold Calling Referrals 120

Sales Gravy

DECEMBER 29, 2024

Maybe you want to be a sales manager, or if youre a manager, you want to be a director or VP of sales. But the biggest reason to set goalsespecially in salesis that the sales profession is hard work and it can be brutal. To-Be Goals These are about evolving into the person you want to become.

Face-to-face 98

Face-to-face Decision Maker Call-back Commission 98

MTD Sales Training

APRIL 23, 2019

So, do we often come up with emotional selling points in our proposals? Unique Selling Proposition – well, these are the benefits that your prospects and clients can look forward to receiving when they purchase your wares. So your emotional selling points can often take centre-stage for your prospects. Feel valued. Feel whole.

Call-back 243

Call-back Up-Sell Proposal Benefit 243

No More Cold Calling

JUNE 17, 2014

This could mean writing a proposal, following up on a referral, scheduling a meeting with a prospect, caring for current clients, or chatting with a potential Referral Source. Bottom line: Don’t let distractions make you so busy being busy that you lose track of what matters—connecting with prospects, clients, and Referral Sources.

Referrals 225

Referrals Twitter Cold Calling Social Media 225

Sales and Marketing Management

APRIL 1, 2019

So, as a sales manager, you need to guide your top salespeople in choosing new skills to learn and next-step goals to accomplish. Examples of skills and attitudes in your success profile could include: Prospects consistently, strong work ethic. Excellent at coordinating sales activities of each member of the account team.

Motivation 314

Motivation Hiring Ideal Customer Profile Guidelines 314

Understanding the Sales Force

JULY 8, 2014

Here are my top 5 examples of salespeople who are busy, but not very successful: They spend long hours researching companies and prospects, reach out on LinkedIn, send InMails, emails and make calls, but have few takers for meetings. Don''t mistake proposals for effectiveness. Don''t mistake busy for smart.

Top of Funnel 252

Top of Funnel Proposal Coaching Networking 252

No More Cold Calling

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

I’m not trying to be flippant, but let’s tell it like it is and stop complicating the sales process. The focus of most sales efforts is on part two—conducting a sales call, asking probing questions, proposing, presenting, and closing. Your Sales Challenge. Converting prospects into customers.

Referrals 227

Referrals Hiring Small Business Small Business 227

No More Cold Calling

JUNE 10, 2021

My entire career had been sales and sales management, and my best business had always come from referrals. I asked salespeople and sales leaders I knew if they liked to get referral introductions. Get meetings with prime prospects in one call. Decrease the cost of sales. That got me thinking.

Referrals 385

Referrals Cold Calling Inbound Webinar Metrics 385

Sales and Marketing Management

JANUARY 1, 2018

Davis In a SMMConnect webinar I delivered to over 100 sales managers recently, I talked about eight instincts they developed as salespeople that are now harming their effectiveness as team leaders. Interestingly, about 30 percent of the participants said that the sales instinct they struggle with the most is “avoiding conflict.”.

Hiring 260

Hiring Webinar Metrics Forecasting Proposal 260

No More Cold Calling

AUGUST 20, 2015

If you’re a sales manager, you’ve probably even said it. The problem is that sales reps neglect important activities during early stages of the sales process. Unless you address the broken links in your prospecting system , your sales reps will continue to struggle. That’s just the symptom.

Closing 120

Closing Sales Management Referrals Ideal Customer Profile 120

No More Cold Calling

AUGUST 12, 2014

Of course, youll never get to hear about their problems or propose your solutions if you drop off the radar until its time to renegotiate annual contracts. Associations Enterprise Sales Management Salespeople Small Business' So when was the last time your clients heard from you? Hello, Stranger. Comment Here.

Face-to-face 266

Face-to-face Cold Calling Small Business Small Business 266

MTD Sales Training

OCTOBER 26, 2018

We found that low morale was, in fact, the RESULT of everything else going on, rather than being the CAUSE of the decrease in sales. The sales manager had seen the situation and had concluded the problem lay in the lack of drive from the sales team , when really the issue was further upstream. Happy Selling!

Proposal 218

Proposal Face-to-face Motivation Analysis 218

Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 22, 2014

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan This is the 8th article in a January series on the Architecture of the Sales Force. Here are the others: Organic Sales Growth and Its Impact on Sales Architecture. Overlooked Conversation Between Sales Managers and Salespeople.

Proposal 235

Proposal Sports Sales Qualified Lead Scale 235

SBI Growth

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

66% of Sales Reps believe that increasing the time invested by sales managers would help to increase their sales. After all, sales management is responsible for Sales Performance Management. Your manager is one of those tools. The thought process isn’t to just “make more sales.”

Ideal Customer Profile 300

Ideal Customer Profile Lead Rank Lead Scoring Analysis 300

MTD Sales Training

JANUARY 12, 2012

That is, adding up all the sales related tasks such as emails, phone calls, and personal visits, the sales person makes 100 contacts with prospective clients before closing one sale. Let us further assume that each tasks takes the sales person an average of 20 minutes to perform. MTD Sales Training.

Closing 284

Closing Cold Calling Proposal Up-Sell 284

Sales and Marketing Management

NOVEMBER 15, 2018

Author: Matthew Sunshine If you’re a sales manager, you know this to be true: Having that tough conversation with a salesperson who isn’t meeting goals is never fun. As a sales manager, see whether this sounds familiar: You sit down with an underperforming salesperson and open with a statement like, “You’re not hitting your numbers.”

Coaching 257

Coaching Construction Pivotal Positioning 257

Zoominfo

JULY 13, 2021

Nearly every business function can benefit from the insights surfaced during front line conversations with prospects and customers. So much of what a seller does happens digitally now, but getting visibility into that activity has been incredibly cumbersome for sales managers. Coaching and Training Superpowers.

Conversion 70

Conversion Top of Funnel Marketing Lead Rank 70

Janek Performance Group

FEBRUARY 7, 2022

Prospecting, seeking new opportunities and clients, is an integral part of sales. However, when it comes to prospecting, many salespeople experience fear. A driver of performance anxiety, it can lead to sales slumps, missed quota, and restricted pipelines. Always think of prospecting from the prospect’s point of view.

Prospecting 118

Prospecting Cold Calling Call-back Lead Scoring 118

Anthony Cole Training

AUGUST 9, 2013

Your sales people are probably focusing on the wrong thing(s) when meeting with new prospects. The time sales people spend in training is spent on mastering the product and services key points to emphasize with prospects. We spend our time teaching them how to tell the prospect why they should buy from us.

Sales Qualified Lead 215

Sales Qualified Lead eBook Competition Segment 215

Zoominfo

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Ultimately, a sales dialer won’t let you miss out on leads that could just be your next customer. Streamlined Prospecting. If we haven’t made it clear yet, your sales dialer should be integrated. How Does Engage’s Sale Dialer Improve Sales Productivity? How Does Engage’s Sale Dialer Improve Sales Productivity?

Closing 264

Closing Call-back How To Outbound 264

Sales and Marketing Management

JULY 2, 2019

Successful selling is a result of many efforts, many ideas, many proposals and many micro-commitments. Pay attention to the way prospects and customers respond to new information in order to better tailor messages in the future. A successful sales manager at a local agency uses a point system to track activity.

Scale 184

Scale Segment Proposal Cold Calling 184

Understanding the Sales Force

MAY 30, 2023

There four possible reasons and fairly obvious solutions: Salespeople aren’t prospecting as required because they have call reluctance. Salespeople aren’t prospecting as required because sales managers are not holding them accountable. Salespeople are prospecting but their messaging is awful.

Decision Maker 156

Decision Maker Hiring Proposal Sales Cycle 156

No More Cold Calling

AUGUST 14, 2019

As I reflected on my career in sales and sales management, I realized my best business had come from referrals. I did my “feet on the street” research and interviewed sales leaders and salespeople. Prospects trust us. We wrote the proposal first. Was this company asking? That’s when my wheels began to turn.

Referrals 291

Referrals Cold Calling Survey Scale 291

DiscoverOrg Sales

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

Note: Account Executives at some organizations also perform sales development; however, for our purposes here, we’re defining the role of AE as client service and acquisition, and the role of SDR as outbound prospecting. Ask the AEs to weed out poor prospects, and let them propose a few alternative names of their own.

Account Based Marketing 237

Account Based Marketing Demand Generation Targets Ideal Customer Profile Account 237

criteria for success

JULY 15, 2021

As sales managers, we’ve all been told we need to coach our teams. At CFS, we believe that to be an elite sales manager, you need to learn how to coach people where they are. At CFS, we believe that to be an elite sales manager, you need to learn how to coach people where they are. State of Emergency.

Coaching 98

Coaching Sales Management Pipeline Sales Qualified Lead 98

Sales and Marketing Management

DECEMBER 14, 2020

In fact, Kavadellas, CEO of Georgia-based Orasi, a software developer, reseller and consulting firm, was scheduled to play a round with a client and a prospect the day after we spoke with him in November for this story. But Kavadellas recognizes the golf course doesn’t suit everyone as an effective setting for a sales meeting.

Outsourcing Services 279

Outsourcing Services Face-to-face Travel Lead Rank 279

Understanding the Sales Force

OCTOBER 25, 2023

If they haven’t been exposed to professional selling methodologies and sales processes, and had those demonstrated to them via expert, unscripted role-plays, then they would have no clue that the presenting and proposing they have been doing is woefully inadequate. I was lucky.

Outsourcing Services 201

Outsourcing Services Territories Proposal Sales Methodology 201

Understanding the Sales Force

APRIL 21, 2014

Group 2 is the training group and they get the optimized sales process, their sales managers are trained to coach, and the salespeople are trained on both sales process and methodology. Group 1 is your control group and receives no more help than they received previously. win rate.

Hiring 261

Hiring Groups Exact Face-to-face 261

Hubspot Sales

SEPTEMBER 12, 2018

Every opportunity will move through your sales pipeline at a different rate depending on their level of interest, urgency, how much research they’ve already done, and so forth. Reps use their pipelines to keep track of where prospects are in the sales process and the appropriate actions they should take.

Pipeline 145

Pipeline Top of Funnel Forecasting Sales Forecasts 145

Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 27, 2024

Wouldn’t it be cool if, instead of the news that currently appears in your feed, or the sports analysis you just heard, you could read the news of your last few days of selling, or hear the play-by-play analysis of your sales call from earlier today? Example One: Dave had a tough few days on the sales trail. I have my theories.

Sports 188

Sports Analysis Outbound Examples 188