The Sales Leader
Cutting Edge Strategies for Sales Leaders by Colleen Francis
Do You Have a Mindset For Success?
Your mindset is typically one of two things.
It can either be one of your greatest tools or one of your worst obstacles. The good news is you get to choose which side of the spectrum your mindset sits.
If there’s one quality every successful salesperson can share, it’s their overall mindset for success. I haven’t met a successful salesperson who spends most of their time focusing on scarcity or negative circumstances.
As hard as you must work in order to see results, you should be working equally as hard to stay positive and focused and instill this same mindset in your sales team. Here are a few tips to get you on the right track:
How to Speed Up Your Deals
You may have noticed this interesting trend…
Lost deals tend to be the same ones that stagnate during the proposal phase. That is, after completing a needs analysis, the deals that are ultimately missed are often the same ones that sit, and sit, and sit in the proposal phase. Interestingly enough, in our research, we’ve also found that completed deals don’t tend to stagnate in the proposal phase but they do spend more time in the needs analysis phase. In fact, completed sales on average spend two to three times longer in the needs analysis phase than sales that are lost.
Let’s go even deeper with this. (more…)
Your Real Source of Revenue
I have a question for you. Do you really know where your revenue comes from?
Most businesses can probably answer that question pretty quickly. It’s obvious, right?
Not so fast.
Recently, we’ve been involved in a very large sales reorganization. There are three sales teams, a channel sales team, a field sales team and an inside sales team. It was always assumed that the field sales team was the main revenue engine. After all, they were the ones going out, finding leads and closing business.
But, we uncovered something interesting… (more…)
The Critical Way Buyers Have Changed
You may have noticed an interesting trend that has recently picked up steam.
Buyers are looking less for experts (this is not an excuse to NOT be an expert, by the way) and they’re increasingly looking for peers.
They want someone is equal to them and at the same level as them, even if they hold different titles from the person they’re buying from.
Here are two important steps you need to consider if you want to be perceived as a peer and build trust with your customers:
Fire Uncoachable Sellers Immediately
Not all sellers who are behind on their sales targets should be terminated. But, any seller who is behind and uncoachable should be terminated immediately.
Uncoachable sellers are unable to improve because they are unwilling.
