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'Sales don''t just "happen". At least, not in my business nor in the companies that I have the opportunity to work with. Over the last 20 years of partnering with sales organizations from coast to coast, from large metropolitan areas to small cities, sales have to be generated not merely collected. Sales have drivers, leading indicators and activities that, when executed at the right amount and the right way, will generate sales results.
'What’s the best way to persuade somebody when talking to them? You have to be confident, talk fast and swear a little among other things. But what about persuading somebody without words – possible? You bet. Researchers installed a ‘fly’ onto urinals across different airports around the world: The presence of a fly in a urinal literally changes human behavior.
It’s the customer’s moral and business obligation to always challenge you with, “But Your Price Is Too High.” This isn’t a problem or issue. What is the problem, is the mindless response from sales people, immediately offering a lower price. Or even worse, anticipating the objection, discounting in advance–it doesn’t preempt the objection, it just means you have to discount further.
'Last week I posted a sick infographic on the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people. The infographic got a lot of play and therefore it got me thinking that it would be cool to provide more info and insight on what it takes to be successful. Sales is a tough sport and a huge part of making it is doing the right things to be successful.
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.
'Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan Two articles caught my attention today. The first, 10 Traits of Successful Salespeople , was typical of the misinformation that often passes for must-read information: The data came from commission-only insurance salespeoplein just one company so it has limited application in other industries. The author says that some of the most successful salespeople share 10 personality traits but doesn''t say how many were in the study or how many shared the 10
'There are SMB and mid-market sales organizations who have not embraced a cloud-based, customer relationship management system, better known as CRM or SCRM. The “S” stands for social, and indicates that a CRM system has the capability to interact with and bring in social media content right into customer and prospect records. It’s safe to say that there are millions of these businesses out there – from very small SMBs to smaller mid-sized businesses.
'I just returned from a conference that I attend annually. The conference is sponsored by Objective Management Group, a company that produces the #1 Sales Assessment tool IN THE WORLD. I am proud to say that, as part of our overall approach to providing critical sales and sales management solutions, we have represented this resource for 18 of the 20 years that we have been in business.
'I just returned from a conference that I attend annually. The conference is sponsored by Objective Management Group, a company that produces the #1 Sales Assessment tool IN THE WORLD. I am proud to say that, as part of our overall approach to providing critical sales and sales management solutions, we have represented this resource for 18 of the 20 years that we have been in business.
'Most people won’t buy anything on the first visit, so you need to capture emails. And then what? In this article we’re going to dive deep into a discussion about creating content for your autoresponder campaign. We’ve talked about ReOptimizing your autoresponders and creating effective drip campaigns before. This article is about how to not sound like a robot and keep that personal vibe even when your content is on auto-pilot.
'We know the importance of selling internally. We get support, resources, and commitments to help us close deals with our customers. We get the programs and products we need to better penetrate our territories. Selling internally is critical to our success and ability to accomplish things. So it’s the same with our customers. To accomplish what they want, they have to sell internally.
'My friend and sales “gansta” Dave Brock posted this great piece on the importance of questions and where the real value in questions is. Dave nailed it with this; Effective questions get the customer to think of things differently, to consider other options, to shift their point of view. The whole tone of a sales call changes when the customer says, “I’ve never considered that before,” or “I’ve never thought about that,” or “I didn’t realize that was possible,” or “No one has eve
'Are you willing to walk away from a customer who is persistently asking for a price discount? I hope so! I cannot emphasize this enough: The customer who beats you up on price will beat you up on everything else. They will drain your energy — and the time and energy of your office staff — so quickly that any profit you are getting from them will quickly become “not worth it.” I recognize that this is not always an easy call to make.
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.
'Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan Last week I posted this article in reference to an Inc. Magazine article that was way off base about Consultative Selling. It led to a significant number of comments with one of them being this question: "Dave, in your opinion, with all the training that is available and has been delivered to sales people over the years, how come sales people still fail at executing an effective approach to qualifying a prospect.
Every firm we work with here at Anthony Cole Training Group uses some sort of sales pipeline application. These applications, which range from simple excel spread sheets (SalesForce.com) to internally designed database systems, are used with the hope of assessing sales productivity and/or predicting future sales. Recently, while working with an international insurance firm, I was told that their tool had initially been very usefull and effective.
So you’ve used different landing page strategies , managed to entice visitors with a great lead magnet , and you’re capturing emails like a boss. Question is, now that they’re on your list, what do you do with them? What happens after they download your lead magnet, and how can you make sure they keep coming back? We’ve talked about creating email drip campaigns before , and if you want to get the basics covered, you should really read this post to give yourself a primer
'I wrote, Customer Retention-Different Approaches , the other day. It stimulated a lot of discussions. One of the most interesting was with my friend Brian MacIver. He reminded me of the terrible difficulty sales people have in retaining and growing business with existing customers, as well as the absence of customer retention strategies in many organizations.
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.
'The phrase “It’s not a matter of if but when” for most of the world is a compelling and calming message. The idea that something IS going to happen is enough. It makes most of us comfortable and elevates the stress of the unknown. In sales however, “when” something is going to happen, is as important as “if” something is going to happen and if you can’t nail the when, you’re only doing half your job.
'Think 2 days, 2 weeks and 2 months as your rule for following up. Each contact you make is designed to help you move from thanking the customer for their business to securing more business. Two days after the customer makes their purchase, reach out to them with a phone call thanking them for buying and making sure they received what they wanted with regard to the benefits they were looking to fill.
'One big contributing factor to your sales success is in your follow-up. There are three points to consider when thinking about following up with prospects, buyers, and with leads: A. Most sellers do not follow-up enough. B. With many in sales, follow-up effort is focused less about them and more about you, your products, and services. C. Many leads slip through the cracks because of a lack of methods and processes.
'I just returned from a conference that I attend annually. The conference is sponsored by Objective Management Group , a company that produces the #1 Sales Assessment tool IN THE WORLD. I am proud to say that, as part of our overall approach to providing critical sales and sales management solutions, we have represented this resource for 18 of the 20 years that we have been in business.
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.
Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan People are easily confused. Take selling for example. If I state that selling is difficult, the top 26% of your salespeople will agree. They are very aware of their sales process, as well as the importance of following it and achieving the milestones that must be accomplished along the way. This requires discipline, consistency, superior skills, and strong DNA.
'There’s a great article in the Harvard Business Review, “Figure It Out.” Be sure to get a copy of it. The ability to “Figure Things Out,” is critical for sales and business success. But it seems we overlook it, or try to “engineer” all our support systems around providing all the answers and direction. We create sales automatons that can follow a process, that can learn a pitch, that can leverage the tools.
'I saw this infographic by Pardot the other day and I thought it was funny and accurate. How To Fend Off Zombie Leads infographic by Pardot. Can you think of another Zombie lead?
'Below are 5 stupid phrases salespeople say right when they’re presenting the price and trying to close. (Usually what ends up happening is they offer a discount! Ouch!). Have you ever found yourself saying… Is that more than you thought it would be? Are you concerned about the price? How does this price compare with what you’ve been looking at?
Are you curious about how artificial intelligence is reshaping sales coaching, learning, and development? Join Brendan Sweeney and Devyn Blume of Allego for an engaging new webinar exploring AI's transformative role in sales coaching and performance improvement! Brendan and Devyn will share actionable insights and strategies for integrating AI into coaching and development - ensuring personalized, effective, and scalable training!
'I''m pleased to have as my guest today Jamie Turner, CEO and Founder of The 60 Second Marketer, an organization that provides tools, tips and tutorials on the newest techniques in marketing. He is a regular guest on CNN and HLN on the subject of marketing and social media and is an internationally-recognized keynote speaker for corporations, events and trade shows around the globe.
'Whenever I do a workshop or a keynote for group that is about selling, I almost always talk about one of the 9 Keys To Successful Selling - the key of persistence. And I generally make my point by asking the audience a question and having the following dialog: How many of you here today have a dog? Have you ever had a dog? Know someone with a dog? Good, that covers everyone.
This is basic information and, unfortunately, our team runs into these issues nearly every day as we coach and train front line sales professionals. Three pet peeves of mine, and perhaps yours, have inflicted the world of communication in selling: Spelling errors. Grammatical errors. Incorrect word choices and improper word usage. I am not an expert – in fact I taught a course for Franklin-Covey on Business Writing for a couple of years, and would catch myself making a typo of some kind in
'My recent posts, “But Your Price Is Too High,” and “Price Is Meaningless Until You Establish Business Value,” have stimulate heated discussions and debates on LinkedIn and other venues. What’s struck me is we still have very fundamental misunderstandings of value, value propositions, and how we understand, create, communicate and deliver value to our customers.
Speaker: Laura Noonan, Chief Revenue Officer at CallFinder + Angie Kronlage, Director of Program Success at Working Solutions + April Wiita, Vice President of Program Success at Working Solutions
Are you still manually reviewing calls? 🤔 It's time for a change! The traditional method of manual call monitoring is no longer cutting it in today's fast-paced call center environment. Industry experts Angie Kronlage and April Wiita from Working Solutions are here to explore the power of innovative automation to revolutionize outdated call review processes!
'How confident would you be picking your next sales person or sales leader without their resume. You couldn’t look at their work history at all, no LinkedIn, nothing. All you could do was interview them. Would you feel more confident or less confident in your hiring decision. Could you pick a winner without seeing their work history? What would you rely on?
'Why should they? Quit talking about what you have and start talking about what they want. We show up at a sales call with pretty pictures, a list of facts and other stuff the customer couldn’t care less about. This is not to say this type of information is not important. It is important, but only when used at the right time. The problem is most salespeople use this type of information at the wrong time.
'My guest today is Jim Dickie. Jim is Managing Partner at CSO Insights, a research firm that specializes in benchmarking how companies are leveraging people, process, and technology to optimize the way they market to, sell to, and service customers. Jim has over 29 years of sales and marketing management experience. He began his career with IBM and Sterling Software and then went on to launch two successful software companies.
'Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan Two clients called this week to express their concerns. Client #1 was concerned because their most important metric is sample requests and their requests are down from the same period last year. I asked what drove sample requests and he told me that sales visits led to sample requests. During the past 6 months we dramatically changed what their salespeople were doing on sales visits.
ZoomInfo customers aren’t just selling — they’re winning. Revenue teams using our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform grew pipeline by 32%, increased deal sizes by 40%, and booked 55% more meetings. Download this report to see what 11,000+ customers say about our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform and how it impacts their bottom line. The data speaks for itself!
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