Colleen’s Blog

Sometimes, it's OK for your business and sales not to grow. You read that right.

Slow markets don't have to mean slow sales.

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

Yes, it is possible to do less and achieve more.

Despite changes to our selling marketplace, too many sales professionals are rooted in beliefs about customer engagement that simply aren't true. That's why today, I'm going to dispel the three big sales engagement myths.

When we're making a sale, we're asking someone to make a change—a change in business, strategy, software, people, or products. However, more importantly, change is difficult. If you start thinking about selling as managing a change management process, it really helps you to speed up sales and set yourself apart from the competition. Why? Because your buyers, indeed, don't like change. They're scared of change and making the wrong decision.

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.

I was recently with a group of sales leaders and one of them admitted that he had sales reps who didn't use CRM. And this sales leader was from a top-performing company with around 40-50 reps who are consistently over their targets both from a volume and margin perspective. While it was commendable that he was willing to admit that his sales reps had CRM deficiencies, it's a shame that those salespeople were not using a tool that would make them much more effective.

I recently talked to a CEO whose sales were down $16 million. That represented a 20% decrease from the prior year. Thus, they were concerned. I asked him, "What would your sales VP tell me if I asked why your sales were down." He replied, "Our biggest customer that represents the vast majority of that loss is in flux. They pivoted their business and, as a result, they're not buying from us right now. We think it's going to pick up, but we are not sure."