Colleen’s Blog

Last month, I had the pleasure of keynoting in Washington, D.C. at Alan Weiss's Million Dollar Consulting® Convention. Lisa Larter, who hosted a session at the event, recently shared a blog post and quoted some of the critical points from my keynote. The theme and key message was this: The buying process has changed and, in today's world, you can't assume it starts with you. I've included an excerpt from Lisa's blog so you can gain some of the same ideas I shared with the audience in April, plus Lisa's insights on your "silent" sales partner:

When it comes to buyer behaviour trends in the marketplace, I'm noticing—with research and my clients—that more and more buyers are utilizing social media to help them make decisions about products and services that they're buying in the B2B marketplace. I've seen some studies that illustrate that it's up to 85%. However, whether it's 50%, 60%, or 85% in your marketplace, you cannot ignore this trend.

Today, I will highlight what I've discovered about making training work—making it work in a way that you get and a way that will yield the highest ROI from your sales training dollar.

The number one question I get from sales leaders: how do I get my sellers to ask for more referrals? Sellers are notoriously bad at asking for referrals in a business to business environment because it makes them sound needy, helpless, or desperate. How do we rectify this fearful mindset?

Ultimately, your clients are looking for solutions to their obstacles or problems. The perfect solution presentation follows a series of steps to help facilitate this. You never want to present solutions to a client without being strategic!

There's the competition you're thinking of, and there's the competition that might be flying under your radar. Let's take a look at who your competition truly is. 

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.

I was working with a CEO and his management team recently and the CEO said, "If you're batting 300, you would be in the hall of fame." It was a great reminder to salespeople that we don't win all the business.

In today's world, you either decide to be digital or you decide to be dead. What's your choice?