by Bill Poole | Mar 26, 2019 | Sales
“People will accept the advice of insight sellers only to the extent that they trust them.” – Mike Schultz & John Doerr, Insight Selling
Trust is a critical component to sales success. In their buyer research, the authors of Insight Selling learned what we know instinctively: trust is one of the top 10 factors separating first place from first loser in the sales process. Lack of trust pretty much guarantees you’ll lose a deal. Low trust hurts client loyalty.
Companies and sales reps need trust. This means you need to be trustworthy. It also means you need to look trustworthy. Today, I want to assume you are a trustworthy salesperson working for a trustworthy company. Let’s turn our focus on the importance of looking trustworthy. (more…)
by Bill Poole | Mar 19, 2019 | Sales
Stephen Covey says that highly effective people put the “big rocks in first” because if you don’t do the important things first, they get crowded out by the smaller things.
The biggest rock for any sales professional is prospecting. It’s the #1 driver of success and the #1 thing that gets pushed to the bottom of the priority pile. Jeb Blount, the author of Fanatical Prospecting, famously said, “The #1 reason for an empty pipe is the failure to prospect!”
What’s The Annual Financial Impact?
What’s the annual impact of inconsistent prospecting? I think this is a worthy question for every sales professional, sales team leader, and company owner to consider.
To calculate the impact, let’s begin with some assumptions. (more…)
by Bill Poole | Mar 12, 2019 | Sales
Today is the 30th anniversary of the world wide web! Nothing has changed the sales profession more than this technology. As I reflect back over my 26 years in sales, allow me to offer some observations on how the internet has changed sales for good.
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by Bill Poole | Mar 5, 2019 | Sales
“Although discipline demands control and asceticism, it actually results in freedom.”
– Jocko Willink
Jocko provides helpful insight for sales professionals and leaders in the final chapter of Extreme Ownership : Discipline Equals Freedom.
If you want the freedom of excellent outcomes, you need discipline. In sales, this means that if you want financial freedom, you need to establish discipline.
The extent to which you embrace discipline will determine your level of financial freedom – avoid discipline and you’ll cause frustration.
Let’s explore some ways that sales professionals and teams can integrate discipline to improve their freedom. (more…)
by Bill Poole | Feb 19, 2019 | Sales
In the office technology industry I serve, we talk about Machines-in-Field (MIF). Every 3-5 years the leases on these machines expire or the machine wears out. Sales reps “flip the MIF” when they upgrade customers to new equipment.
MIF-flipping plays a critical role. After all, we need to maintain our customer base. However, we also work in a mature market. That means that average selling prices are dropping faster than cost of goods. Each year the delta between sales price and cost gets squeezed a little tighter.
What does that mean?
Companies and sales reps that have historically depended on MIF-flipping will suffer a slow and painful decline.
Some businesses are counteracting the revenue decline by purchasing more MIF to flip. The top line revenue of these businesses look good, but ultimately, these businesses will also feel the pain. (more…)
by Bill Poole | Feb 6, 2019 | Sales
“All the storytelling we do requires frequency. You’ll try something new, issue a statement, explore a new market… and when it doesn’t work right away, the instinct is to walk away and try something else. But frequency teaches us that there is a very real dip–a gap between when we get bored and people (our clients, prospects, and employees) get the message.”
– Seth Godin, This Is Marketing
As business owners and sales professionals, we tend to give up too soon. (more…)
