Colleen’s Blog

When meeting with prospects or high level decision makers, many salespeople focus on the wrong type of conversation. Your average salesperson will spend hours preparing sheets that outline their product’s features, benefits, pricing and other details. They practice their pitch, and at times have a lengthy speech rehearsed. While preparation is never a bad thing, the successful salesperson understands the value of focusing on the correct aspect of the presentation.

Closing rates are ALWAYS the "topic of the day" during workshops, coaching calls and strategy sessions. What is yours? Is that high or low compared to average? What would you expect it to be? How can we make it better? Is my closing rate higher or lower for lost deals vs. won deals? Questions abound, here's where you should start.

Last year, I was interviewed by Maclean's Magazine. They asked me what specific courses a student needed to take in order to get a good sales education coming out of university and going into the workplace.

Want to accelerate your sales this year, but unsure which sales skill to make a priority and develop among your sales reps? If I had to choose one to suggest to you, it would be prospecting. Now, let's dive a little bit deeper to specifically the kind of prospecting I'm talking about.

One thing that I've noticed recently is that sellers aren’t always good at learning how to pivot. During the qualification stage, we get thrown for a loop sometimes. A prospect or a buyer answers in a way that we weren't expecting, yet we need to stay on track and pivot with another question.

Get creative. That's my advice for any business owner or sales leader about to embark on a new phase of recruiting. Far too many leaders stick to the same old, same old when it comes to their recruitment process and trying to find great talent to join their team. It's surprising to see how many organizations stick with ads in the paper, online postings and even using the same recruiters they've used in the past. They don't switch things up! The result? The same tired and boring resumes that keeping flocking in. Sure - you may find a great hire in that pile of resumes. But, generally speaking, if you want to find a "stand out" candidate, don't use a worn out process to try and attract them. Here's how you can add a little creativity to your hiring process:

We've already talked about how the more time you spend doing a thorough qualification means you’re going to win more business. You now know what the most often missed question in the qualification phase is: the decision-making criteria, specifically the priority of that criteria.

How often do you track your growth accounts? In order to be successful with your growth clients, you should be tracking them on a regular basis. More specifically, you should update yourself on their progress on a monthly basis. This may seem counterintuitive, especially because I recommend tracking key accounts on a quarterly basis. But, there are four big reasons that I suggest tracking your growth accounts more frequently.