Sales Tips for the End of the Pipeline

You’ve listened online and are following your prospective customer – the one you are about to close a big deal with-  socially via every means possible.  If they have a Twitter account, you’re there.  Through LinkedIn you found a company profile, your contact’s professional past, and all of his or her colleagues’ as well. You know these guys through dozens of web searches and references.
The sales opportunity has stalled – which we talked about last week. Through a very strategic conversation with your prospect, both they and you are in agreement, and things get moving forward.  Still, the deal has not come to closure.
At the end of the pipeline, deals come to fruition. In simple transactions, it can happen from prospect to closure in a single series of steps… continue reading

Generating Trust Is an Essential Leadership...

 
A very good friend and ex-client of mine runs a highly successful information technology service in the South of England and his private-sector customers include many Times Top 100 companies.
We often exchange opinions and I recently asked his views on leadership, because I have always been impressed with his commitment to “people development”
He believes leadership is all about bringing out the best in the firm’s 1800 employees. “We have a very informal, non-hierarchical structure,” he says. “The task of our leaders is not simply to issue orders but to act as role models in providing our customers with what they want in terms of teamwork, friendliness, delivery and, in general, supplying a top-class service.” Many of those who join the company are former customers. “We first of… continue reading

So, Just How Good Are You/Your Sales Team When...

 
I first became seriously interested in objective sales team assessments in 1993 when I created my own consultancy. Up until that point, I had used various psychometric tests for recruitment purposes, and they were useful, but somehow, they always left me wanting more. In fact a couple of years ago, I wrote an article called “Psychometric Tests and Professional Salespeople – Happy Bedfellows?” and I said:
“You see, returning to my Attitude + Skills + Process + Knowledge formula, at what point does a psychometric finding have reliable relevance?
The attitude element is uncertain and for me this is critical, as it drives the motivation of all the other elements: Skills, including; negotiation, presentation, account management, relationship building, opportunity assessment etc, cannot be assessed. The individual’s commitment to appropriate sales… continue reading

Now available – Smartr Contacts for iPhone by Xobni

Regular visitors here will know that over the past couple of weeks, I have been talking to some great fellow thought leaders and I am really enthused about all that is in store for 2012 – and the years to come!
But today, I have some exciting news that you don’t have to wait for ..
I am pleased to announce that Smartr Contacts for iPhone is now available in the iPhone App Store.
Many of you, like me, have been using Xobni’s products on Android, Gmail, Outlook and BlackBerry and have been waiting patiently for the iPhone version of Smartr Contacts.  The wait is over, it is available to you today!
Download Smartr Contacts for iPhone
What this means to you is that if you already use Smartr or Xobni on Gmail, Outlook, Android… continue reading

Professional Selling – Will it Soon be the Survival...

 
In recent weeks, I have been discussing the future of professional selling, and amongst other predictions, I have suggested that in my humble view, within five years, just 5% of external salespeople will remain.
It will therefore come as no surprise that I have received a number of emails asking if I will clarify what these survivors will look like, what will be their characteristics, and what will differentiate them.
Over the past twenty years I have trained, developed and mentored almost one hundred  thousand sales professionals - from foundation right up to “master craftsman” level -and I think this has given me a unique opportunity to formulate an accurate profile of a “Top 5% Achiever.”
So What Is It That Top 5% Players Do?
They:
o Position themselves with the real decision-makers… continue reading

Are We Witnessing the Dawn of a New Type of Leader?

 
Old ways of doing business no longer work: the increasingly intense competitive challenges of the world economy challenge everyone, everywhere, to adapt in order to prosper under new rules.
In the old economy, hierarchies pitted labour against management, with workers paid wages depending on their skills, but that is eroding as the rate of change accelerates.
Hierarchies are being replaced by networks; labour and management are uniting into teams; wages are coming in new mixtures of options, incentives and ownership; fixed jobs melt into fluid careers.
As business changes, so do the traits needed to survive, let alone excel. All these transitions put increased value on emotional intelligence. Competitive pressures put a new value on people who are self-motivated, show initiative, have the inner drive for outdoing themselves, and… continue reading

Middle of the Sales Pipeline – Acceleration

Most everyone focuses on the front of the sales pipeline, and there is much written about all of the things that happen early on. But what about once you have potential sales opportunities? How are they moved forward to closure, and what happens during that “dark phase’ when your once-wonderful prospective customers are not returning your calls or e-mails?
Welcome to the middle of the pipeline, or for those of you using a funnel approach to track sales opportunities, welcome to MoFu (as coined by Hubspot, for middle-of-the-funnel). This less talked about period is where your prospects live, breathe, and sometimes hide – and during that time many opportunities disappear due to lack of nurturing from you.
We need to work on ways to accelerate the pipeline. In simple terms,… continue reading

Schhh! Can You Hear the Silence?

 
Yes, me too. Nobody – well hardly anybody – is talking about “Sales 2.0″ anymore, and yet less than twelve months ago, you couldn’t hear yourself speak above the incredibly loud din that rose to a deafening crescendo.
So what happened? Has it gone away? Have we moved on to “Sales 3.0″ and everyone forgot to tell me? Was it all a figment of my imagination, or perhaps a bad dream?
It is now more than five years since Nigel Edelshain first coined the term, on a balmy Sunday afternoon way back in 2006, and perhaps we all now accept that actually, it was just the next phase in a continuous cycle of change in the way we all sell.
But the silence we are witnessing now is almost as loud as… continue reading

Five Attributes of Top Sales Influencers

Being recognized this month as a Top Sales Influencer made me wonder: What IS an influencer, and how can this help build a business or a brand?  I mean, it is a great thing to have happened – quite an honor –  but what is it, really?
Wikipedia talks about identifying influencers:
Market research techniques can be used to identify influencers, using pre-defined criteria to determine the extent and type of influence. For example, Keller and Berry propose five attributes of influencers:

Activists: influencers get involved, with their communities, political movements, charities and so on.
Connected: influencers have large social networks
Impact: influencers are looked up to and are trusted by others
Active minds: influencers have multiple and diverse interests
Trendsetters: influencers tend to be early adopters (or leavers) in… continue reading

The Nature of Dynamic Leadership

People have been debating the nature of leadership for as long as records have been kept – certainly as far back as Homer and his peers: The topic continues to fascinate and enthral us today, but the way in which we assess leadership roles is changing.
Where once we looked to military and political leaders for inspiration and insight, now it is increasingly business leaders who hold our attention and provide role models.
Ask someone to name a leader whom they have admired and they are just as likely to name Richard Branson as Winston Churchill; Bill Gates as Margaret Thatcher. This focus is reflected in the growing number of books and articles about business and the main players.
Most writing on good management and what it takes to get… continue reading