If each of us can honestly answer “yes” to these questions, then it would appear that our sales and prospecting efforts are underpinned by sound ethics and behaviours and set up to deliver a fair exchange of value for both buyer and …
4 Questions to Test if your Sales & Prospecting Tactics are Ethical Read Post »
Sales Trend 1 from our 12 Sales Trends for 2017 report is about sales metrics.
What do we measure now?
When we talk about sales metrics we usually think units, volumes, quota, members signed, calls made. Generally speaking, these metrics would have been put in place in an organisation at the time that the sales team was established, and (maybe) changed from time to time, usually from quota to number of calls or units, and so on.
The current state of flux of markets and most industries is quite different from the time when the use of these metrics was best practice. …
Sales Trend 1 – New Metrics Read Post »
‘Selling is a numbers game’ has been said more times than any of us care to remember. And yes, numbers are critical to sales, however some organisations place far too much emphasis on the managing the numbers, especially their obsession with their salespeople’s input activities – i.e. number for prospecting (cold) calls, client meetings, numbers in the pipeline etc. This “management by numbers” approach is flawed and leads to confusion, distress and worst, poor sales results over both the short and longer term. The approach fails to grasp that up to 80% of the activities of a sale are outside …
Why managing sales inputs leads to sales disaster Read Post »
When it comes to sales productivity and sales performance many companies are shortchanging themselves and, unfairly blaming their salespeople for poor sales performance results.
How can that be? Well too many businesses pay salespeople for business development and then lumber them with non-revenue, non customer oriented activities such as administration, unnecessary internal meetings, service delivery or transactional account problems. And whilst acknowledging that these are very much a part of managing the client’s experience and classified under the sales portfolio, the haphazard manner in which these are structured does little to encourage optimal live …
How much valuable selling time are you wasting? Read Post »
Sales managers are being told to do more with less, to work smarter to get peak performance from their sales teams, despite increasingly limited resources. As tough as it is, there is one tool in the sales manager’s portfolio that is never in short supply – Praise!
Yet for some reason, many sales managers find it challenging to show their appreciation for their sales people’s efforts, reluctantly doling out praise as if it was in short supply. …
Recognition or Praise? Read Post »
The United States has been responsible for many great innovations but not all have turned out the way the inventors, architects or innovators intended. One such miscalculation was the introduction of ‘commissioned-only’ salespeople.
This initiative spawned negative effect on the reputation and results of salespeople worldwide and its stigma has remained ever since, commissioned or not.
Have you ever wondered how ‘commission only’ selling was born and why it harbours such negative sentiment? To understand the driving forces behind the commission only sales force, one must travel back to the US in …
How Commissioned-only Selling Ruined the Sales Profession Read Post »
Of all questions, this is the one that remains on the minds of sales leaders and executive teams. It is often the cause of more debate and angst than any other question in a business.
People search for the golden answer, however their quest will not deliver a definitive one because it all depends on what you want to achieve.
The current wisdom is that while there are ‘best practice’ frameworks for creating the ideal sales compensation or incentive scheme, it is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
While Remuneration Surveys can provide some pointers, they are not a reliable or accurate …
What’s the right incentive scheme for my sales team? Read Post »
Who wants to work with accountable, responsible, and self-directed sales people? Of course we all want these types of sales people in every sales team. Yet, most businesses do not support this by setting up their sales team to clearly measure and manage their sales performance.
Sales performance management begins with accurate role descriptions and perception, data collection, and measurement in line with set goals and strategy, however many organisations measure only one variable, sale results (outputs measures).
This type of approach leaves businesses and sales teams in the dark about how they arrived at their sales …
Measuring and managing the right things in sales Read Post »
Do you take time to really think about why you are calling a prospect or a client? Do you reflect on how effective you have been post the call?
Making prospecting calls to new prospects and existing clients is still one of the most important sales and business development activities you can do on a daily basis. Even with all the electronic communication and marketing options at hand most businesses still need to have someone prospecting for them to build and forge real business relationships. Top performing sales people make sure prospecting is part of their daily repertoire.
Like many things prospecting …
Getting prospects to talk to you Read Post »
As part of my ongoing professional and personal development I belong to a CEO leadership group where we meet monthly and discuss a whole range of topics to stimulate our thinking and decision making.
Recently we discussed the concept and qualities of Successful Entrepreneurs. Besides making the obvious comparisons with ourselves as to whether we met the criteria of successful entrepreneurs I found the content translated extremely well into what I and other research is seeing in successful sales people today.
It seemed to me that successful sales people had a lot in common with successful entrepreneurs who are often the main …
The Entrepreneurial Sales Person Read Post »