Colleen’s Blog

Millennials in the professional world have been a hot topic for the past few years. It seems every second or third article online discusses how to communicate with them, what they seek in an employer and what gets them operating at their peak potential. It makes sense, with more and more of them piling into the workforce, managers and leaders are trying to get a grasp on how to best handle this generation.

I'm rarely lost for words, but this provocative question at last night's Enterprise Sales Forum in NYC caused me to pause for a few minutes: "What does the fact that most sellers don't call themselves "salesperson" say about our clients' perception of us, and what does this mean overall for the future of our profession?"

Are you or members of your sales team having trouble getting past gatekeepers? I've noticed a trend. In my latest workshops and training working with top sales performers, one issue that keeps coming to the surface is how to get past gatekeepers. It's an obvious struggle. If you can't get to the individual who has the power to buy and sign purchase orders and checks, it's going to be a long and tough road to making sales (and that road can very well lead to a dead-end). So, how can salespeople get past gatekeepers? There are three important points that you need to consider:

Last year, I was at an extended leadership team meeting for one of my best clients.  We introduced a quick concept to his sales managers around account management and proper account planning.

A key distinction between top sellers and top sales leaders is that top sales leaders must be excellent team players, whereas top sellers do not. Leaders must be team players. Why? Because they must believe that the whole team:

You may have noticed this interesting trend... Lost deals tend to be the same ones that stagnate during the proposal phase. That is, after completing a needs analysis, the deals that are ultimately missed are often the same ones that sit, and sit, and sit in the proposal phase. Interestingly enough, in our research, we've also found that completed deals don't tend to stagnate in the proposal phase but they do spend more time in the needs analysis phase. In fact, completed sales on average spend two to three times longer in the needs analysis phase than sales that are lost. Let's go even deeper with this.

Improving productivity to be a more profitable seller - everyone wants to do it, but few actually succeed at it. I'm providing some simple (but extremely powerful) strategies in this live video that you can apply to sell more in less time.

Referrals don't work. That's what a client of mine recently told me.

You may have noticed an interesting trend that has recently picked up steam. Buyers are looking less for experts (this is not an excuse to NOT be an expert, by the way) and they're increasingly looking for peers. They want someone is equal to them and at the same level as them, even if they hold different titles from the person they're buying from. Here are two important steps you need to consider if you want to be perceived as a peer and build trust with your customers: