Colleen’s Blog

Let's face it, your competition inevitably comes up every so often while you speak with prospects and clients. You need to know how to talk about the competition.

Financial compensation doesn't have to be the only approach to commission. There's another, perhaps more valuable approach which can further motivate your sales team to produce results.

There is absolutely a difference between how top sellers interact with people, compared to how mediocre or poor sellers interact with people.

I have a challenge for you, ditch your powerpoint. Do this for the next week, or even the next month. Wondering why?

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.

Stop hanging on to poor sales performers! It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that sales leaders hesitate far too much when it comes to getting rid of their dead weight. In fact, this is a common element I come across in many dysfunctional sales teams I observe. Wondering if, perhaps, this is something you might be guilty of yourself?

Slow markets don't have to mean slow sales.

If you follow my work, you may be familiar with my belief that the most critical part of the sales process is between getting someone to say yes and when that order actually comes in. The shorter you can make this time period, the less likely you are to lose the sale.

Far too many sales teams underperform because they have underperforming sales reps in the team. These sales reps need to be replaced. Additionally, another reason for a sales team's poor performance is that one of the top sales performers left, resulting in a drastic loss. Both of those are issues that sales leaders have to address on a proactive basis.

Most of my clients are in traditional businesses: commodities, manufacturing, aerospace, and finance. Businesses and business reps that have a long history in the market have been successful because of relationships. When you spend 30 years in your territory selling to the same customers and buyers, you have a good relationship with those customers. You see those businesses grow, thrive, and flourish as a result of your work. However, recently, we've been helping some of those clients of mine reposition the way they are thinking about relationships.