Colleen’s Blog

The number one most discussed topic by my community in the past year has been surrounding cold calling. If you're an active member of my online communities, you may recall seeing much of the debate behind the statement I made...cold calling is dead.

Did you just do a double take? Don't close sales...isn't that counter-productive to our sales success? You heard me right. Salespeople should not be attempting to “close” sales with clients. It’s all in the definition.

If I was running your sales team and there had to be one thing that I would insist on, it would be this non-negotiable, mandatory behavior from all salespeople.

At this time of year, the weather is warm (for the most part!), sellers are anxiously awaiting their vacation, and they also seem to buy into the idea that making sales is next to impossible.

The best behavior that you can exhibit in order to retain the vast majority of your customers is a healthy sense of paranoia.

Today, I'm decreeing a ban on corporate marketing materials for salespeople. I want to ban salespeople from using them, ban marketing teams from producing them, and maybe even ban the entire industry. Why?

Sales leaders ask me all the time about how to make their sales team take accountability, or hold them accountable, for the set goals. I have to remind them that it's very hard for anyone to want to be accountable for someone else's goals.

I recently got back from a vacation in Japan and from that experience, I started to think about why I love going there in the first place. What draws me there? What sales lessons can we learn?

This common error costs more sales than most sales leaders are willing to admit. Here's the thing, you could possess the most talented sales team in the world, equipped with sales reps who know how to ask the right questions, overcome objections, negotiate effectively and it will still do you no good if these reps don't ask for the sale. Why then, are so many sales leaders being nonchalant about the fear of asking for the sale? This doesn't have to be a matter of intimidation!