‘Coffee is for closers.’ The hard-sell philosophy might have worked when folks were selling swampland in Florida, but in lengthy sales cycles or those with multiple decision makers it just doesn’t work. The alternative is a lengthy sales cycle and that means plenty of opportunity for a stalled sale. To systemize moving prospects through a…

In today’s world, salespeople are expected to be more than great talkers – they also have to understand how their products work and be able to explain that to potential customers. That’s why salespeople with technical backgrounds are so appealing, but they often come without any background in sales, communication or relationship-building. Salespeople with technical…

Cold calling is one of the most feared events in a salesperson’s day, and even in their career. The chance of connecting is low, and the opportunity for rejection is high. Why is that? After studying more than 10,000 sales calls ourselves, we noticed that most salespeople make the call about them – ‘Let me…

“Do your customers know, like and trust you?” That’s a question that’s been asked hundreds of times, and it’s one of the hardest ones to answer because ‘trust’ is such a hard thing to measure. We know when we trust someone to fulfill their commitments, and once trust disappears it’s very difficult to rebuild it….

Stay in sales long enough, and you’ll encounter problems. Problems finding qualified leads, problems getting them into conversations. Problems getting them to commit to meetings. Problems getting their commitment for next steps. To sales leaders, this often sounds like, ‘our leads are poor quality,’ ‘no one is picking up the phones,’ or ‘folks want prices…

Whether salespeople know it or not, they’re using processes when they sell. Unfortunately, if those processes aren’t systemized, then they’re rarely updated and often hurt sales more than help them. What worked pre-pandemic won’t have the same effect today. In order to ensure we’re capturing what’s working across our pipelines and keeping it up to…

Sales is one of the few career fields where ‘fake it till you make it’ is an actual strategy. Unfortunately, when that technique works it often breeds salespeople who assume they don’t have anything new to learn. Instead of encouraging salespeople to up-level their skills, success unfortunately confirms a false sense of confidence that damages…

When it comes to sales systems, there is no topic salespeople argue about more than automation. Some salespeople love it, some say it costs them sales. Sales leaders understand how it can save time, but many are reticent to use them for fear of turning prospects away or lowering engagement. There’s a middle road, and…

As we interview salespeople around the world, we hear about the need for more prospects, more meetings, more proposals and more sales. What that ultimately comes down to is: More time. Salespeople know this, but they still sit down every day and re-create every conversation and write each email by hand. Those that don’t are…

How many direct messages do you get each day that you ignore or delete? If you’re like most of us, the answer is: Too many. Just because so many folks are mis-using direct messaging as a prospecting method doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, and that open up an incredible opportunity for salespeople willing to leverage…

Salespeople around the world are trying to shorten their sales cycles and sell more quickly. You’ve likely tried all the tricks they do: software, auto-dialers, and email blasts. To truly sell more quickly, we need to stop focusing on how to save ourselves time as salespeople. Instead, according to Joe Malmuth, we should focus on…

As a salesperson, it’s critical for prospects to know your time is as valuable as theirs. One of the biggest time sucks in the world of sales isn’t data entry or chasing down tough-to-reach prospects. Rather, it’s getting ahold of someone and spending time with them, only to discover they’re not the decision maker for…

‘Providing value’ has become a catchphrase in the world of sales, but there’s a massive problem with trying to deliver value in our outreach: Value looks different to every single prospect. Of course, one of the jobs of a salesperson is to discover the individual challenges of their prospects and match up their product or…

The toughest thing about using a system isn’t following a step-by-step plan as most salespeople are great at leveraging those. Instead, the hardest part is having a system to use at all. When salespeople and their leaders think about creating systems, it can become overwhelming. Where to start? With pipeline stages? Outreach campaigns? Call scripts?…

Salespeople spend a lot of time generating conversations, discussing value and developing relationships – but how much time do they spend looking at how well they’re doing all these things? That’s the question we asked with Ian Selbie, a sales trainer who began his career with Apple and holds the title as one of their…

As a salesperson, you’re likely trying sell more, close deals faster, and deliver more value than competitors. And you’re not alone – which is why so many salespeople try to win on price. It’s a strategy that works – until it doesn’t. We’ve all experienced the pain that comes when a prospect pays more for…

“Whoever is first to the field will be fresh for the fight.” – Sun Tzu Ever waited on the phone to ring or emails to come in and wondered why sales were in a slump? You’re not alone. Every salesperson, at one time or another, realizes that running a referral-based business puts our success in…

It’s the unicorn of sales outreach – closing prospects on the first call. A sales leader who has a stellar record of this is Bob Bolton, a man whose career in advertising sales put him at the top of his field. We sat down with Bob and discussed how salespeople could achieve a one-call-close, or…

The more we’re in front of our prospects, the easier it is to stay top of mind and increases the chance they’ll think of us when they’re ready to purchase from us. For years, this has meant salespeople have to make the time to research their prospects, get them on the phone and provide value….

Have you ever gotten a prospect close to becoming a customer and then saw the sale stall as they asked for more time, more information, or needed to check with another decision maker before making a decision themselves? Most salespeople consider these delays part of their sales cycle, but in industries that already have years-long…

The dream of salespeople is to only work with prospects and customers who are easy to close, friendly, and who respect the value you bring to the table. These are ‘profitable prospects,’ and they’re the unicorns that salespeople spend careers pursuing. But what is a ‘profitable prospect’? Is it the one with the most margin,…

We’ve heard that customers have to both know, like and trust us before buying. What if we could start every conversation focused on the most important element: Trust? Developing trust faster with prospects doesn’t take NLP or language tricks. Instead, developing trust faster comes from understanding the struggles our prospects are going through and empathizing….

As a salesperson, have you ever found yourself in a conversation with a prospect and couldn’t seem to get them interested in you, your company or your product or service? It’s a problem that’s plagued the world of sales since the beginning of time. Companies spend millions each year trying to turn it around with…

If you manage a sales team or are the senior member on your squad, you’ve likely been asked to parachute in on an at-risk sale. While you’re not literally strapping a parachute to your back, you are being asked to solve other people’s problems. That may be in the job description of a leader, but…

How many times have you had a great conversation with a prospect, discussed next steps and hung up the phone or left the meeting feeling on top of the world? And how many times did that feeling disappear when you found out the prospect went with another supplier? That problem is exactly the issue we…

Great salespeople are solution providers, but even the best salespeople eventually have to deliver bad news to a prospect or client – delivery delays, supply chain issues, incorrect orders – and what happens when it’s time to deliver bad news can make or break the relationship. If we’re not solution providers even when things go…

In the midst of making calls, sending emails, studying industry trends and responding to inquiries, salespeople are also expected to know what to do and when to do it throughout their day. Unfortunately, hoping salespeople do the right thing at the right time is a recipe for responding to whichever fire is burning hottest. In…

If you’ve been in sales long enough, then you’ve been stopped cold by a prospect. Maybe they asked a question that you stumbled through or had an objection you couldn’t overcome. Sales teams invest a lot of money training their folks to respond to basic questions, but what inevitably happens? The scripts aren’t specific to…

With competition tougher than ever for many salespeople, we’re not only challenged with getting into conversations but also being relevant. As many businesses begin to recover from a year of shutdowns and supply chain issues, they’re looking for partners that not only offer a great product or service, but also those who can guide them…

The worst time to think about the things you’re going to talk about with a prospect is when you’re in a conversation with them. To solve this problem, many sales teams create a list of discovery questions or call scripts that remind them of the things they need to know about a prospect or their…

The most valuable resource salespeople have isn’t their network, their experience, or even the notes in their CRM. According to Jeff Goldberg, who has been in the field of sales and sales training for almost 50 years, the most valuable and under-appreciated resource salespeople have is their integrity. Fortunately, integrity is something every salesperson can…

Salespeople the world over understand that training rarely trains them to create more results. Often the training is out of touch with the goals they’re pursuing, or it doesn’t apply to the type of prospects they have in the pipeline, or maybe it’s using language and scripts that went out with bellbottom pants. Yet we…

In any conversation with a prospect, the most important thing isn’t being brilliant, or providing the cheapest solution. The most important part of a sales conversation is what happens after the salesperson hangs up the phone. More opportunities are lost due to lack of follow-up than any other reason. Think about the last few conversations…

Ever had a day when you went from one sales meeting to another, to another, to another? When we get on a roll, it can seem like we’re running from one sales meeting to another. That used to look like driving from one part of town to another, trying not to break too many speed…

When someone has expressed interest in a company, a stopwatch starts ticking. The prospect is now testing that company to see how responsive they are and what they respond with. Will they get a spammy email or something more personal like a phone call or custom-made video? Salespeople know that the calls we make today…

The first question a prospect has to answer before becoming a customer is: “Do I trust this company?” And salespeople, in an effort to accelerate that trust, often try to over-commit and over-deliver. This actually kills more sales than it creates. But let’s back up a bit, because every time a salesperson interacts with a…

In a period of history where almost all of our prospects are struggling, the last thing a salesperson wants to be is another problem to deal with. Unfortunately, that’s exactly how most prospects see us. Why? It’s because salespeople rarely show up with valuable information – solutions that mean our prospects struggle less after talking…

A lot of salespeople can get a prospect close to becoming a client and then drop the ball on the final inches of the race. They may say their prospect didn’t have the budget, another supplier undercut them, it turns out it’s not the right time, etc. Regardless of the reason, it’s a mis-management of…

It’s inevitable that sooner or later, our prospects and clients will go through a time of crisis. Whether that crisis is negative, such as a downturn in their own businesses, or positive, as in a lot of demand and not enough personnel or supplies to deliver, the salespeople who are prepared to be a solution…

In the midst of all the call quotas, meeting goals and closed business salespeople have to manage, it’s easy to hope we remember to mention new products or services we have available. Multi-tasking account management, prospecting for new leads and educating prospects on new ways we can help almost guarantees those new products and services…

Chad Hastings, a sales manager with Alta Equipment, shared a strategy with us that allows sales leaders to hold their salespeople accountable for reaching out to all their accounts – not just the easy ones to do business with. Salespeople don’t exist to sell our products and services as quickly as possible. Rather, they exist…

One of the smartest minds in sales is Jeff Bajorek, and we were able to sit down with him to talk about making sales Bulletproof. One of the chief challenges we discussed was outbound campaigns to convert conversations – a perennial issue in the world of sales. Jeff made it clear that leads are different…

In an interview with David Copeland, we learned that in 2019, his team was slated to attend 96 trade shows to meet prospects had to take a hard pivot in 2020 – only attending 3 trade shows. Thankfully, David’s salespeople were still able to maintain relationships virtually because they remained relevant. The one thing that…

 In an interview with Brian Haug, we discussed the importance of ensuring changes stick in a sales team. Because our salespeople are learning things every day that allows them to better connect with and serve clients, it’s critical that sales leaders take the time to download those lessons for the benefit of the team –…

When salespeople are in an industry with long buying cycles or buying windows, prospects will often weeks or months before they are in a buying mode – and a lot can change in that time. A formerly viable account could lose funding, interest, need or even go out of business altogether! We recently sat down…

It’s a fact that not all buyers are created equal, yet many salespeople spend a lot of time pursuing prospects that either can’t or won’t do business with them. When we sat down with Dale Roznowski, an engineer-turned-sales-leader, we asked him how he advised his salespeople to prioritize their time and decide which prospects actually…

Technology has become ubiquitous in prospecting – salespeople embraced social media, LinkedIn, and auto-responders as sales tools that get results. Unfortunately, few salespeople are leveraging technology throughout their sales cycle to ensure their deals have a higher chance of closing. As Phil Gerbyshak shared with us on our recent livestream series, technology can actually help…

If you’re judging the success of your sales career by how many sales you make, you’re destined to live in feast or famine. You’ll be chasing the next deal in front of you and not planning for long-term revenue. It’s a cycle of pain that will never let you get on top of what does…

While email should only play a small part in our prospecting systems, it is still a great communication channel and should not be ignored. But how do we differentiate our emails from the dozens (or hundreds) of emails our prospects receive? We sat down with a sales legend recently and he told us the only…

In a livestream conversation with Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter,” we discussed one of the key challenges salespeople faces – time management. The most impactful way to make that happen? “Don’t work off a to-do list, work off a calendar,” Mark said. Whether that looks like phone calls, emails, social media messages and even old-school…