sales process
How to Not Be Cannon Fodder
One of my pet peeves is salespeople sending out proposals too soon. You’ve heard me talk about it before. In complex sales, proposals should never be the first thing you send, unless it’s with an existing customer who already knows you and knows they’re ready for something specific from you.
Rethinking the Sales Pipeline: From Seller Stages to Buyer Journeys
For decades, sales pipelines have been built around the seller’s activities. Familiar stages like discover, qualify, demo, propose, negotiate, close are deeply embedded in most CRM systems, forecasts, and reviews.
You Can Fly a Plane in Five Easy Steps (And Other Ridiculous Lies We Tell Ourselves)
I was on a call recently with a very smart sales leader with a strong vision for how he wants his company to sell. His approach is proactive, ambitious, and thought-out. He knows which data points to track, how to create reports, how to guide his sales team, how to position the company, which methodologies he wants to use, and what the optimal sales process looks like.
Sales Process or Sales Methodology? What’s the Difference, and Does it Actually Matter?
The complex sales world is littered with jargon that is so often repeated that they lose their meaning. But when these same terms are treated not as jargon, but rather become clearly understood, they can become key differentiators for your sales team.
Growth Comes From a Complex Web of Small Changes, Not a Giant Heroic Leap
I was interested recently to read this post by Matt Green on LinkedIn. In it, he points out that when organizations hand down large growth targets like, say, 20%, the tendency is for sales teams to panic. And then to invest in one big change, like hiring a lot of SDRs to bring in a lot more leads or investing in a big new technology platform or sending out massive automated email campaigns. This almost always backfires.
The Sales Process And Contextual Flexibility
I’ve been doing some work with a brilliant CRO. We’ve been reworking and implementing a revised selling/buying process. Their previous process was poorly defined, outdated, and people weren’t using it.
