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I’ve not read the book Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff and It’s All Small Stuff by Richard Carlson. It’s a catchy title and I’m sure a good read. If you are looking for a solution on how to keep from chasing every chicken you see then I’m sure there is good information to be gleaned from the book. But if you are a sales manager responsible for developing your people and for driving sales growth this is awful advice.
You want to know where the biggest opportunity for sales growth is today? Do you want to know what is the one short thing you can do to blow out your numbers and crush the competition? It’s to turn your sales organization in to a teaching organization. Times have changed and so has your job. As a sales leader it used to be you had to build a sales organization that could sell by telling, pitching and closing.
Persuading completely rational people to make a certain decision or take a specific action would be quite easy. Unfortunately, you’re stuck dealing with irrational thinking , fuelled by cognitive biases and emotions. [Tweet It!]. So, how do you persuade effectively when people are so heavily influenced by subjective (and contextual) factors? That’s a complicated question with no definitive or universal answer.
A big thanks to the BCITMA for inviting me to speak at your event this evening. I know I covered a lot in our brief time together so I thought I would post my slides and some links for your reference. Here are some quick links for you: Shane Gibson’s Online Professional Sales Certification Program. The Vancouver Sales Performance Meetup. The 2014 Sales Quota Attainment Study by A Sales Guy Inc. and Kitedesk.
Speaker: Jady West, VP of Hospitality & Chris Bennett, Head of Sales & Engineering
The modern hotel room is no longer just a place to stay—it’s an experience to remember. Today’s guests expect seamless 5G connectivity, personalized comfort, and high-tech convenience. From AI-powered smart room controls to in-room entertainment and app-based services, technology is redefining hospitality from the inside out. In this new session featuring industry pros Jady West and Chris Bennett, we’ll explore how high-speed, high-bandwidth connectivity powers the innovations that are enabling
Marketing has been developing fantastic content. They are leveraging every analytic tool imaginable, they’ve got marketing automation tools, they’re active on social channels, doing everything possible to generate demand. Sales people wait for the coveted SQL–the Sales Qualified Lead. Regardless of what’s been agreed between marketing and sales, to a sales person the SQL is a buying ready (hopefully PO ready) lead.
Last week I was training a sales force to sell value - an absolutely revolutionary concept - when the unthinkable happened, not once, but twice in the same training. As incredible as it was to me, it clearly illustrates why it is so darn hard for companies to get their salespeople to sell value.
So, where are you on this social media thing? Do you have a Twitter account? Are you on LinkedIn? Do you use Google +? Or are you one of those people sitting on the sidelines still trying to figure out why social media even matters, because you have too much to do to be bothered with what someone is eating for lunch. Let me help you out. Consider this a Sales Guy Public Service Announcement: Social media makes quota!
If I asked you, “what’s the most persuasive word in the English language,” what would you say? Many would say “free” – and that may or may not be accurate. It’s one of those CRO ‘best practices’ that is often repeated but rarely discussed in detail. There are studies that support its power, but there is also plenty of data that supports the idea of ‘free’ being detrimental to optimization.
Does your level of sales drive your motivation or does your motivation drive your sales? Yes, it is a chicken or egg type of question. In my mind they drive each other, but in the end I want to close as many sales as possible, so it means my motivation needs to be at […].
Perhaps it’s because it’s early Fall (for us in the Northern Hemisphere), but a couple of things have happened this weekend that have caused me to stop and reflect–actually to pay attention. I have just rediscovered “Vinyl.” What I mean, is that I’ve rediscovered physical record albums and the pleasure of listening to music.
Documents are the backbone of enterprise operations, but they are also a common source of inefficiency. From buried insights to manual handoffs, document-based workflows can quietly stall decision-making and drain resources. For large, complex organizations, legacy systems and siloed processes create friction that AI is uniquely positioned to resolve.
Most of the great books I read are disappointing, at best, when they become movies. The Davinci Code, Gone Girl, Absolute Power, Lone Survivor, Hunger Games, The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, The Lincoln Lawyer, 127 Hours, and Heaven is for Real are just some of my recent disappointments. Unbroken, The Blind Side and Moneyball didn't get botched up too badly.
One of the problems facing many companies today is getting more from what they have. In a time of economic pressure to manage the profits companies have become very creative in finding solutions to manage the burn rate of their cash. The solution that many, if not most, struggle with is how to get the cash generation rate to meet and exceed the burn rate.
You “Can’t” It’s not that you can’t get ahold of the CEO. It’s not that you can’t make Presidents Club. It’s not that you can’t find more “A” players. It’s not that you can’t penetrate that big account. And it’s not that you can’t get your team to use a CRM. It’s that you haven’t yet ; and that is an entirely different situation. The minute you say you can’t it’s over.
More choice equals freedom, right? Well, yes, but there’s a good body of evidence that the more choices we are presented, the less happy we are with the one we make. What does that mean for conversions, though? Retention? Revenue? The Psychology of Choice. The most famous, and I believe the first, study that pointed to the adverse effects of choice was in 2000 and the subject was jam.
B2B marketers face a number of challenges, including: continuously generating great leads converting leads to active sales prospects finding vendors that deliver real results Aggregage has proven content syndication, webinar, online advertising and intent signal marketing programs that deliver higher-quality leads. More than 700 companies have already benefited from our programs.
We all want to close deals faster. Too many times the way salespeople close a deal faster is by cutting the price, thinking a lower price will create a faster decision. Here are 10 things you can do right now to close deals faster, and not one of them involves changing your price: 1. […].
Every day, I get dozens of connection requests through all sorts of channels. Early on, as I was building my networks, I didn’t scrutinize the requests very closely. If someone seemed nominally interesting, I was glad to connect. Over time, I’ve become much more careful, primarily because accepting many requests opens a flood gate of unwanted emails, phone calls, and meaningless solicitations.
If you had a crystal ball to predict whether or not your next sales candidate would succeed in a difficult selling role at your company, wouldn't you want to use it? Heck, you would want to look into that thing even if it wasn't a difficult selling role. But what if you were recruiting kids right out of college? What would you do then? Would you just recruit a whole bunch of kids and keep the ones who didn't quit?
“Why,” I was asked, “must you manage sales leads in order to manage sales? Sales lead management is a marketing function, isn’t it?”. It was with a slight hesitation that the sales manager added the second sentence about sales lead management being a marketing function. Of course it is, but only partially. With marketing automation it is a growing part of the job.
AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.
Hey peeps, #heykeenan 14 is up and cranking. In this Take, I answer a great question by the great Gabe Villamizar , social media king of Utah. There is a big difference between coaching and training. Yet few people understand it. Great question Gabe. Send me your questions for #heykeenan, if you shout out, and I’ll shout back.
Are you familiar with the expression, “The most valuable customer is the one you never lose”? In the CRO industry, it’s easy to focus on simply converting more leads all day, every day. More visitors to the landing pages, more emails submitted, more phone numbers captured, etc. A higher conversion rate is great, but as Peep says, “If you want to increase conversions, make everything that you sell one cent, conversions go way up, but you go out of business.
Recently after a conference where I spoke, a salesperson asked for ideas on how he could increase his value. The question got me thinking, so here’s my list of what you need to be doing to become a top-performing salesperson: 1. Ask your customer questions both you and your customer can’t answer. Salespeople are famous for […].
A friend called me for advice today. He’s a great sales person, a big deal hunter. He wanted to review a deal strategy and call plan he was making on a CTO at a very large, fast growing prospect. His colleagues had been working with the CTO’s team. By far, they were the front runners for their first piece of business with this customer.
Today’s buyers expect more than generic outreach–they want relevant, personalized interactions that address their specific needs. For sales teams managing hundreds or thousands of prospects, however, delivering this level of personalization without automation is nearly impossible. The key is integrating AI in a way that enhances customer engagement rather than making it feel robotic.
Last week I published a case history on a company that we nicknamed, BigBrains. Many readers emailed asking if we could perform this analysis for them (yes, in most cases) and whether this would be considered benchmarking (no). In this article, I will actually show you the difference between benchmarking and the Perfect Fit Analysis that we use as proof to clients and to customize Objective Management Group's (OMG) Sales Candidate Assessments.
The best salespeople are constantly looking for ways to improve. They are not staying static for extended periods of time because, let’s face it, if you’re not moving forward – you’re moving backwards! There’s almost nothing better than reaching (or exceeding) all of your sales goals for the year. A certain feeling of accomplishment is […].
It’s not uncommon for me to get calls from business owners, CEO’s, heads of sales, etc. asking for help. In some cases, there is a good need to work together, and we enter into a contract. Other times, for whatever reason, it just doesn’t make sense. In these cases, the person or company isn’t ready, they don’t have the money, they have resource issues, etc.
You spend most days analyzing and interpreting numbers, right? You’re constantly sifting through Google Analytics dashboards, Formisimo reports, Mixpanel data – the list is endless. When you spend so much time focusing on the numbers, it’s easy to forget about the people generating those numbers. That’s where qualitative conversion research comes into play.
What if you could help your sellers stop wasting 72% of their day on non-selling activities and focus on bringing in revenue? Incorporating AI in your enablement workflows can help you cut down on busy work, get projects done faster, and let your team (and you!) focus on making a bigger impact. We put together this guide to show you how to use AI to cut time and costs for projects, including collateral creation, development of training videos, and automating tedious processes.
1. Don’t ignore the gatekeeper. Treat them the same way you would the senior level person you are trying to reach. Ask the gatekeeper the same questions you would the senior person you’re trying to reach. Many times the gatekeeper is the one who in the end will determine whether you merit time on […].
Yesterday, I had one of those “Aha” moments. I realized that much of what I’ve been talking about for years has been wrong. Well not completely wrong but off target enough to be significant. I’ve written and advocated about helping customers buy, facilitating their buying process, or even leading them through buying when they don’t know how to buy.
The way that most people watch television these days is to fall in love with a continuing series, and then watch the episodes, on demand, when they want to. I believe that when it comes to reading, Blogs work very much the same way. You come across a Blogger whose work you like and who writes about things that interest you and you check back often or subscribe via email or RSS.
I consider SiriusDecisions to be the gold standard when it comes to best practices in B2B marketing and sales processes. So it’s with great pleasure that I conclude this series on ABM with feedback from SiriusDecisions. First, here’s the question we’ve been asking our experts: According to a report by SiriusDecisions, 2015 State of Account-Based Marketing (ABM), more than 60 percent of companies plan to invest in technology for ABM to better align sales and marketing over the next twelve months.
Speaker: Jay Allardyce, Deepak Vittal, Terrence Sheflin, and Mahyar Ghasemali
As we look ahead to 2025, business intelligence and data analytics are set to play pivotal roles in shaping success. Organizations are already starting to face a host of transformative trends as the year comes to a close, including the integration of AI in data analytics, an increased emphasis on real-time data insights, and the growing importance of user experience in BI solutions.
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