A Sales Compass – A Blog by B2B Sales Connections

This post comes to us from Paul Letendre, a sales executive with extensice experience in food service sales.

Half-Empty?

It’s part of the ballgame, we will get discouraged from time to time.  At this time of year, it is especially common.  There is a lot of business uncertainty as to what the New Year will bring.  When a sales rep gets discouraged, that’s a good sign.  Reps are supposed to get discouraged; the work is not supposed to be easy: if it were easy, then anyone could do it and it wouldn’t pay crap.  (more…)

A task.fm website visitor recently asked me to how can you increase the productivity of your sales team.  As it is a question I receive regularly, I thought I would share my answer here.

The best thing a sales manager can do to increase the sales productivity of their sales team is to show them the difference between being busy and being effective.  Just making more sales calls will not make a sales representative more productive, but making more of the right type of calls at the right time will.  It may be an old cliché, but you just need to teach your team to work smarter, not harder.

For example, I was working with a sales representative who was a cold calling buzz saw.  From morning until night, he would bang on doors, rarely stopping to even eat.  Was he busy?  You bet!  Effective?  Not even close!  In fact, this sales rep was on the verge of dismissal for lack of sales production.  (more…)

I was sitting in on a sales meeting recently. One sales representative whose sales results exceeded all the other representatives combined was being praised for his outstanding sales results by his manager.

Another sales person whose results put him very close to the bottom of the leader board asked what the secret was to the quota buster’s success. After he received the answer, the first thing the under producing rep said was “well, that will never work for me.”

The first thing I thought of after hearing this was the saying, “Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by those already doing it.”

The bottom line is if you want to improve your sales performance, you have to be open to new ideas and willing to change the way you are doing things now. You also have to be prepared to take some new course of action. Otherwise you will only be repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

Our Coaching Services have helped many achieve their sales potential. For some, it was helping them make the right career connections. For others, it was improving their sales or sales management skills. And for others, it was showing them some simple techniques to maximize their marketing efforts online.  As I believe I can help you succeed too, I would like to invite you to enter to win a free sales training and coaching session with me, the B2B Sales Coach.

Aim Higher!

Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Coach from B2B Sales Connections

www.linkedin.com/in/susanenns, www.facebook.com/B2BSalesConnections, or www.twitter.com/SusanEnns

Technology has changed our lives forever.  We can now communicate with virtually anyone, anywhere at any time.  However, technology has also created a new set of rules for what I consider acceptable and unacceptable behavior. 

Some believe this new business etiquette to be generational in nature; that since those who are younger grew up with technology, it is only them who make these faux pas. Since I have personally experienced people of all ages make these mistakes, I say age has nothing to do with it.

Let me give you some examples.  (more…)

Whether you are dealing with customers or managing a sales team, if you keep saying yes to exceptions, they will become expectations.

Aim Higher!

Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Coach from B2B Sales Connections

www.linkedin.com/in/susanenns, www.facebook.com/B2BSalesConnections, or www.twitter.com/SusanEnns

An aquaintance wrote me the other day saying “I wish I could do…”   It got me thinking.

How many people have ever said to themselves “I want to achieve…” or “I need to improve…”?  I would venture to guess a lot.  I also wonder how many of those same people have ever taken steps to do it.  Probably very few.

If you want to make anything change, you need to get started on it. Just wishing for something won’t make it happen, you have to take action to make it happen. If you want to improve, it’s up to you!

Rememeber as Albert Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.

Aim Higher!

Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Coach from B2B Sales Connections

www.linkedin.com/in/susanenns, www.facebook.com/B2BSalesConnections, or www.twitter.com/SusanEnns

I used to work in an industry where the summer was a dead time for the sales team. The customers would shut their production down for a week or two. Contacts were on vacation and nothing moved. Then late August and early September would come and sales would start happening. This resulted in the sales people moving too fast and mistakes happening.  I effected both the sales person and the customer.

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Have you ever been in an internal meeting and asked “why do we do that?”, only to receive the response “because we have always done it that way”?  Have you ever heard a prospect say the same thing in response to one of your fact find questions?  In my opinion, this is a very dangerous response.  More importantly, it often presents a great opportunity for improvement and could result in an excellent sales opportunity.  Here’s is a story to illustrate why:  (more…)

Many sales representatives absolutely dread their monthly sales forecasting meetings with their sales manager. Why? Often, it is because they really don’t know what is the next step to close the sale. More importantly, they also don’t know when that step is going to happen. As such, their forecasting accuracy is less than desired, and that makes for some unpleasant meetings!

To eliminate this, as sales professionals, we have to do a better job of controlling the time frame of each potential sale. (more…)