Colleen’s Blog

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.

Whether it's a prospect or a client you've been doing business with for years, you need to over-communicate, not under-communicate. Far too many sellers believe that no news is good news. If they have a problem they are trying to resolve and have not resolved it, they just won't call their customers. This stems from the fear that the customer will either not like their progress or response. Thus, these sellers hide and under-communicate.

Years ago, I had a client based in Northern Europe and they were a ships services company. Their sales VP told me, "Colleen, we have a long and proud history of losing all the RFPs where we have the incumbent relationship." I had to think twice for a second and did not know what he was talking about.

It's impossible to create a non-stop sales boom in your organization with a high turnover rate. Have you thought about how to reduce it on your sales team?

You may have noticed this interesting trend... Lost deals tend to be the same ones that stagnate during the proposal phase.

When I ask sales teams what's the number reason why their pipeline isn't more full—how come they're managing a pipeline so lean it's going to be impossible for them to hit their targets—they give me an excuse. They abdicate responsibility, claiming that their marketing department has not provided them with enough leads. You have to be responsible for your own pipeline.

I recently talked to a group of sales leaders. It was the last three days of their quarter and they told me, "Colleen, we have to admit: we are having a fire sale. We're doing everything we can right now, including deep discounts to push us over the end of the month because we are a bit behind and we want to finish the quarter on track."