VP of Sales

As sales trainers, we are asked often how to generate new customers. Yet, when I talk to CEO’s /VP’s I hear all the time that “we don’t sell enough to our own clients.” Or “If we never got a new customer but expanded our business with our existing customer, we would be obscenely profitable.”
So what’s [...]

{ 2 comments }

A few days ago, Bryan Neale wrote a great sales training post, even though he didn’t call it that. He talked about his lessons from 2008. I say it’s a sales training post because every sales manager (and you aspiring sales managers) should use this as the first sales meeting topic of the year.
In that [...]

{ 2 comments }

Something didn’t feel right when I watched the news about the potential 2,000,000 people that would be out of work should the Big 3 go away. My family is all from Detroit and although not in the industry, certainly affected by everything automotive.
But I try to look at things through different glasses–and sometimes it gets [...]

{ 2 comments }

I know we have a large number of readers to this blog that are also account executives/sales professionals, so you’re welcome to read this and apply it to yourself.
I can’t tell you how many phone calls we get from sales managers/CEOs who complain that their people just can’t communicate the value of their products, and [...]

{ 0 comments }

But I will and the question is: Are we working on the Right Problem when we devise comp plans?
I get all sorts of RSS feed on sales compensation, including the latest from www.gotomarketstrategies.com Good content all but I think most miss the major point. 
 
Vision Should Drive Compensation
The major point is  what kind of compensation plan [...]

{ 3 comments }

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be offering up some sales training tips for you trainers/sales managers who take that role in your company.
 Never start any sales training unless your team has bought in to it.
I know this sounds like heresy. “Why on earth would we want the inmates running the asylum?” (as one of [...]

{ 0 comments }

Last week I was consulting a client who uses free seminars as a prospecting tool. They really do give a lot of information at the program–so even if no sale is made, goodwill is created. But they were having trouble getting people there. They were cold calling–mailing-emailing. With not much to show for it. So [...]

{ 1 comment }

I got a call from a client last week. She had just begun our program with her company and had heard us talk about “changing how you think” in order to get better results. We hadn’t yet gotten into the details of that, but since she called, I shared with her the five areas of [...]

{ 1 comment }

This is from my very own Trainer Rule Book. Over the next few days, I’ll give you some of the rules we teach our clients who ask us to help them grow their business.
[NEVER COERCE PEOPLE PSYCHOLOGICALLY.]
Our freedom is most dear to us. When you, as a sales professional, begin to encroach on that freedom, [...]

{ 0 comments }