Posts from — March 2010

What goes through you when your boss or your inner-self says you’ve got to get to the top decision maker for this deal, contract, renewal or sale? It’s probably not great. However, the executive suite is where you have to be to increase your chances of success.

Most sales people quickly boast that they can get to or have “no problem” meeting with the top executives of their prospects or customers. However, when I ask, “What does that leader want from you?” they scramble for an answer. Now if they knew that, it would be great, right!  Read more...

Prospecting has never been harder – or easier. Yes, it’s hard to get responses, but you have all the tools at your finger tips to increase your odds of grabbing the attention of your top contacts and getting a reply.

Gone is the dialing for dollars mentality. You can do better than that.

You can use these tools to do everything from identifying who your best-odds prospects are to deducing why they’d want to speak with you, writing a powerful email, and ultimately attracting them to you. Here are some of my favorites.  Read more...

Have you heard the old joke about the husband and wife on a cross country driving trip? The wife says “honey, I think we’re lost”. The husband replies, “yeah, I’m sure we are, but we are making great time!”

Are you lost in your sales career? Are you coming into work everyday and reacting to what is put in front of you or are you following a map to reach your destination?

These kinds of generalizations used to drive me crazy, until I realized what kind of a map was needed. For me, in my sales career, and for the salespeople I work with, that map is a process map – a map of the sales process.  Read more...