Colleen’s Blog

I travel for a living (it seems) and for the last two years I have been avoiding the US Connections area at Pearson airport like the plague. Why? To sum it up quickly, it's been a mess! Small cramped facilities, confusing steps that were not well communicated, multiple procedures that triplicated tasks, insufficient capacity for Global Entry, and machines that were constantly broken or out of order. Plus, mixing connecting and non connecting passengers meant the passenger loads were too high to process everyone in time to make flights. My last fight was delayed an hour simply because the system could not get everyone through security and customs on time. Not cool. Today, that all changed. The new procedures show excellent promise:

In an endless ocean of sellers that are often selling similar products and services, making your business or organization stand out is of the utmost importance. Being seen as a thought leader is, in today's world, one of the best ways to not only differentiate yourself from everyone else, but to have buyers chasing after you instead of the other way around.

If your sales are suffering right now, I want to make you aware of a shocking statistic. According to a study conducted by our friends at InsideSales.com, an incredible 30% of leads are never followed up on by the sales team when passed on by the marketing department. Can you believe it?! It doesn't matter if you have a client base of 10 people or 10,000 people. Ignoring 30% of your leads is a great way to create a sales disaster in your business. At the very least, I'm sure we can all agree that even if your sales are on target, that extra chunk of business can't hurt! Now that we have that surprising stat out of the way, let's discuss what's required in your follow up.

They're hitting and exceeding their targets with no signs of slowing down. Should you even bother to coach your top sales performers? I've been working with executives for the last few years on sales coaching practices. I've noticed that many executives are on the fence about whether or not to coach top performers. Let me clear the air.

In Venice last week I learned that locals are leaving in droves. Yes, the water is rising (by 1.5 meters since the city was founded). But the encroaching tides are not the cause for the exodus. Instead, it is high real estate prices.  Only 57,000 locals remain in the city. The bakers are gone; bread is now imported from the mainland. The butchers are gone, the families are gone and the schools are closing. In multiple Piazza’s we saw 1-2 lone children playing in what were once bustling communities.  The city has become a location for “day visitors” as our guide called them, as most tourists don’t even spend the night. Homes are being bought by foreigners who rarely visit, and workers in the hotels and shops commute in and back every day leaving the restaurant patios away from St Mark’s empty. The nights, while peaceful, are somewhat eerie. And it got me thinking.

We're approaching the end of the first quarter of the year. Are you satisfied with your results so far? Regardless if your sales team is way ahead, on pace or behind on the targets you've set, I want to direct your focus to a potential gold mine you're already standing on. In fact, there are countless organizations who will miss their sales targets this year, without realizing that if they took advantage of this gold mine, they could not only make up lost ground, but completely exceed the results they hope to create this year. Don't worry about grabbing your shovels, no physical labor is necessary to tap into and grab the gold that's already waiting for you. Wondering what exactly this sales goldmine is? Enough suspense!