How to design a sales process for complex sales
Despite compelling evidence that companies with a sales process sell more, many don’t have a documented one that is consistently executed by everyone. If you don’t have a sales process, this blog post will get you started.
“Checking in” is not a next step!
For those of you that know me, this won’t be a stunning confession, but I really struggle with my impatience. I try to rein it in–I’ve stopped tapping my pen, incessantly, on tables in meetings (though my legs are bouncing up and down under the table). I’ve learned to count to 10–well maybe 100, before jumping in on a review. But my tolerance level for waiting is virtually non-existent.
How to ramp up new salespeople
The average cost of a failed ramp-up or miss-hire can be six times base salary for a sales person and 15 times base salary for a manager, according to the book “Topgrading,” by Bradford Smart. Also, considering that almost half of all salespeople don’t reach their targets, the importance of effective recruitment and ramp-up should be a topic in focus for sales managers.
5 tips to high performance sales coaching
One of the most important aspects in high performing sales organizations is sales managers’ ability to coach and give effective feedback. This was one of the main findings in ProSales research, “Performance management in B2B sales.” But how can sales managers coach and give feedback effectively? Here are 5 tips to get the best out of your sales performance coaching efforts.
Can checklists increase your sales by 20%?
I just read a fascinating book called “The Checklist” by surgeon Atul Gawande. The advice in the book is 100% applicable for sales leaders who are looking for ways to improve processes that positively impact performance.
Reduce the fluffy sales pipeline syndrome
Okay, so if you are monitoring your salespeople’s pipelines, that's a start. Many sales managers focus on getting opportunities into the pipeline. This is also a start. If you want to be ultimately effective predicting closed deals and therefore revenue growth then you need to stop focusing on the pipeline value and focus on the pipeline velocity.
