Part 2 A New Year and A New Account List Closing out the fourth quarter revealed the extent to which sales management will drive their salespeople to take action. One of the guys called the key senior executive at his customer during the evening of a Christmas party she was hosting at her […]
Turning Lemons into Sales Lemonade – Part 2 Read More »
The extreme pressure to meet or exceed financial expectations at the end of the fourth quarter at publicly traded technology companies make really smart and professional people do the dumbest things. The disgraceful stereotypes people have of salespeople are there for a reason. Public tech companies do their part each quarter by performing their foolish
Turning Lemons into Sales Lemonade – Part 1 Read More »
During one of our annual sales events, a colleague from another part of the country was holding court at the opulent lobby bar of the hotel where we were all sequestered, boasting about closing the biggest deal of the previous year. I squeezed into the group to listen and glean some pearls of wisdom about
Getting Your Accounts Reassigned Read More »
Many years ago while at my girlfriend’s company holiday party, I listened in disbelief as one of her colleagues blathered on about how much money he made in his sales job. Growing up, my parents impressed upon me that sharing your salary was something you just don’t do. I never questioned this piece of family
Finding New Sales Job Opportunities Read More »
While I was commiserating with a colleague over a tough week of selling, he flipped his hand up like a New York traffic cop to stop my whining. “Bliss, you’re the problem,” he said.“It’s up to you to put the ‘executive’ in your Account Executive title. You’ve been granted a franchise [my account list];
Putting the Executive in Account Executive Read More »
You know that feeling of astonishment when you have a waitress taking an order for a table of ten by memory? Everyone at the table is amazed as she walks away, but there’s also a quiet concern if the order will be right. If your dining companions are that concerned about whether the waitstaff
Taking Notes for Effective Sales Meetings Read More »
The spotlight of scrutiny shines brightest and constantly on salespeople. The future of any company is banking on their salespeople delivering against their goals. The larger a company grows, the larger everything gets, including the pool of underachieving sales staff. The growth of mediocrity isn’t limited to individual sales staff–it infiltrates management, too. Once this
Sales Hunters and Sales Farmers Read More »
Self-doubt, Stuttering and Fear of Failure are Close Friends of Mine My insecurities often clouded my self-perception resulting in impenetrable walls of anxiety. My brain is consumed at times replaying my gaffes and failures while pondering “what if”. What if I did more research, asked more questions, sought out more people, worked harder, didn’t
How Exercise Impacted my Sales Career Read More »
People want to be understood, which is why observing Pareto’s Principle (i.e., the 80/20 rule) is critical to your sales meetings. It’s your job as a salesperson to discover how you can help them. The only way to do this is through comfortable discourse where 80 percent of the conversation should be your customer answering
Talking is Not Selling Read More »
An Uncomfortable Meeting Kickoff Picture this; We’re in a pivotal meeting with our prospective client. Executives from business and technology are present. The meeting is already 10 minutes late (do corporate meetings ever start on time?) and everyone’s finally settled into their seats. Our team’s salesman kicks off the presentation. His opening comments
The Sales Quarterback Read More »
