Is your story working? I don’t mean your sales pitch. Or your value proposition. I’m talking about the story of you.  Everyone of us constructs a story in our minds that defines who we are, what’s important to us and what we want to achieve. So, what should you do if your story isn’t working? […]

Our job is to build connections. First things first. If we are unable to connect with another person, engage their interest, build their trust and inspire them to take action, then everything else we think we know about how to sell is irrelevant. First things first. To sell requires a connection. With a real-life person. […]

Being fast with no value has no value to your buyer. Here’s a real life example from a former client: I worked with a client who was successfully generating a ton of targeted inbound leads. However, their follow-up stunk. They were taking three business days on average to follow up a lead. In other words, they […]

Sales coaching and sales training are both sales performance improvement methodologies that are here to stay. The benefits of both are obvious, but many teams question when to use one or the other. The truth is that for a sales organization to be truly successful, they must use both. But, it must be done properly. […]

What is warm calling? Warm calling is an outbound sales strategy that focuses on dialing, connecting with, and having sales conversations on the phone with sales leads who have been “warmed up” with some kind of prior activity. Warm leads can be defined as prospects that have previously engaged with your company in a meaningful […]

Sales calls are more than just a conversation. They are very much a component of a process that is designed to sell. Therefore, they are something that must be monitored, measured, analyzed, and improved. Like most things involving human interaction however, sales conversations are both an art and a science. There are both tangible and […]

Here’s something that can’t happen with virtual selling: your buyer can’t have Security throw you out of their building. Which is too bad. Those are great and painful learning experiences. I flushed a multi-million dollar opportunity with a prospect in the LA area because of a simple driving error. It was an account I’d been […]

At their core, salespeople only want to do one thing: sell. But while technology presents salespeople with new efficiencies and opportunities, it also comes with major challenges. CRM data needs to be kept clean, managers need access to the data they need to make intelligent decisions, and the right sales technology stack has to be […]

What are your sales principles? I love the following quote from Harrington Emerson, a renowned business theorist. “As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.” […]

What’s your sales truth? You can’t spend a minute on LinkedIn or some sales forum without encountering people claiming to be the sole possessors of previously unknown sales secrets, sales truths and sales hacks that have the power to transform your life. What these “truths” have in common is that they all claim to provide […]

“Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand.” Samuel Beckett. In school I was taught that ostriches buried their heads in the sand to avoid danger. It’s a great visual. But, it’s untrue. When ostriches encounter danger they can’t escape, they don’t bury their heads in […]

Bestselling author Chris Voss has negotiated some of the most difficult deals in history. As a lead negotiator for the FBI, he found himself in more than a few life-and-death situations. From his career in the FBI to his transition to being a business consultant, Voss consistently used a tactic to gain a powerful edge […]