Colleen’s Blog

It was a gorgeous day in San Francisco today and another busy day at Dreamforce! I spent the day with Adobe in the Adobe Sign Signature Lounge shooting video and talking to people about the future of sales.  You can check out my Facebook live interview with Joe from Adobe here. The message about community obviously resonated with people as it's had over 1.5k views today. We started our conversation about creating customer experiences. I believe that customers and employees want to experience a community. Dreamforce is an example of a customer experience community that we should all strive to emulate. Dreamforce is a community where:

Interesting observational research moment today during my session at Dreamforce. In a room full of 400 sales professionals, I made the case that there is no more B2B or B2C and that all selling was B2All. I stated that "the way I buy shoes, is the same way I buy $1 million dollar telecom equipment for my business." There was a visceral reaction. People in the audience older than me, (let's call them 50+) shook their heads in disagreement. People in the audience younger than me smiled and nodded enthusiastically. After the session ended I had the same responses as I spoke to people.

Taking the occasional peek at the sales pipeline is not effective pipeline management. Managing and reviewing the sales pipeline helps salespeople prioritize what activities to complete each month, it also gives them an accurate indication of how healthy their sales pipeline truly is. Here are a few steps for you to consider and that you can pass on to your sales force so that they can efficiently manage their pipeline:

It's been an exciting weekend at the Olympic track this week and no one better displays the Olympic spirit than the two middle distance runners Mo Farah from Great Britain (Gold medal men's 10,000 meters) and Ethiopia's 3000 metre steeplechaser, Entensh Diro. In a true to life Chariots of Fire moment, Farah went down hard  half-way through his race, picked himself back up and went on to win. The last 2 laps are some of the best racing I have ever seen and (disclaimer, Farah is a track idol of mine) it's no surprise I was yelling at the TV.

You can discuss sales strategies, ideas, tips and methods to no end. You can set sales targets for your team to hit, implement a promising new strategy and motivate your sales reps with morning huddles. But, when the day starts, it's up to your team to do the work and create the results. Salespeople don't always struggle due to weak strategy, at times poor productivity habits will seriously hinder their progress as well. Let’s cut to the chase. The best way for your team to achieve true productivity in their work day is to ask them to cut off all inbound access. Now, before your jaw drops too low, let me clarify that you should only ask that they do so temporarily, ideally an hour or two each day. Consider asking them to turn their phone to silent or completely turning it off. They will also benefit from logging out of their email inbox while they work through important tasks. When your team is focusing on outbound business development prospecting, they should not have to deal with distracting, time-consuming tasks which take the focus out of their work day. It's great to be able to multitask, but your team will always be able to accomplish more by laser focusing on the task at hand. Want a perfect example of how this simple tweak in productivity can benefit your team?

You offer a great service and haven't received any complaints. Yet, you still feel a void between yourself and your client. Emails and calls are short and to the point, and you may even feel anxious about your client ending the business relationship unexpectedly. You never really know where you stand with your client, professionally and personally. Have you felt like this before? Many salespeople and business owners have. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. What truly defines a great salesperson isn't what happens during the sales process, but what happens afterwards.

Get creative. That's my advice for any business owner or sales leader about to embark on a new phase of recruiting. Far too many leaders stick to the same old, same old when it comes to their recruitment process and trying to find top sales talent to join their team. It's surprising to see how many organizations stick with ads in the paper, online postings and even using the same recruiters they've used in the past. They don't switch things up! The result? The same tired and boring resumes that keeping flocking in. Sure - you may find a great hire in that pile of resumes. But, generally speaking, if you want to find a "stand out" candidate, don't use a worn out process to try and attract them. Here's how you can add a little creativity to your hiring process:

We're now well into Q2. Are you ready to help your team accelerate their success? I’ve been working with organizations and helping transform their sales teams for the last year. In all cases, these are companies looking to grow faster than the market and at an accelerated pace than their current growth path. Here are their keys to success:

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!