Colleen’s Blog

I recently had a conversation with a really smart sales VP who said, "I need my team to remember that our job is to provoke our customers. It's to make people think. It's to bring them new ideas that they had never thought about before."

Prospecting during these uncertain times has been a popular topic. This is because prospecting in person—whether at a networking event, an association meeting, or through old-fashioned door-knocking—is just not happening anymore.

Be honest, is your sales team, or are you lacking consistency?

You can't afford to enter the new year without doing this.

I've seen it happen over and over again - chances are one or more of your team members are guilty of doing this too... Picture this, you have a prospect that is interested in your product or service. It seems that bringing them on board as a new client is more or less a done deal. Your rep continues to sell to them anyway. They keep piling on and highlighting features and value that your prospect doesn't necessarily even need. The prospect begins to back off, they go from being interested and engaged to hesitant. The prospect decides they need to think about the decision...you never hear from them again. What happened? The sales rep fell into the "oversell trap" and lost a potential client as a result.

As the world changes at an increasingly rapid rate, the sales industry has no choice but to adapt and change as well. If you've been in sales long enough, you may remember a time when feature and benefit selling was a great way to create success with your sales endeavors. However, in today’s market, feature and benefit selling is more or less dead. In fact, buyers are engaging in the sales process much earlier than ever before. They may not even know it, but what matters most to your customers in this day and age is alignment. Let’s discuss a few different types of alignment that will help turn prospects into customers.