Webinars

Editorial

Slow Down! Seven Reasons Why Salespeople Talk Too Much
by Gerhard Gschwandtner
Last week, following the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston, we conducted the very first Selling Power TV game show, in which contestants were asked to give an elevator pitch about a product or service. (To see the show, visit sellingpower.com). After watching the contestants, I wondered why so many salespeople tend to speak too fast, leaving little time for their listeners to follow them. Why do we often talk more than we should? When other…cont.

Train Your Sales Team

Group Dynamic
How to handle complex sales opportunities, where buying committees rule and the old rules no longer apply
by Geoffrey James
This article is based on a conversation with Sharon Daniels, president and CEO, and Jim Wilcox, a regional training manager, of AchieveGlobal, an organization that delivers leadership, sales, and service programs. They can be reached at AchieveGlobal Headquarters, 8875 Hidden River Parkway, Suite 400, Tampa, FL 33637. Tel: 1-800-566-0630 Web: achieveglobal.com   What's Changed in B2B Sales? Selling business-to-business (B2B) has become increasingly complex and difficult. Opportunities that were once within the purview of one…

Selling Essentials

Direct Effort
How one sales veteran is helping her team navigate the changing world of pharmaceutical sales
by Heather Baldwin
Pharmaceutical reps are under the gun. A morass of federal regulations, diminishing access to doctors and staff, and competition from lower-priced products have all turned the pharma rep’s job into an Olympic task as tough as running the high hurdles. But hey, they still love the game. Belinda Mikel has been navigating those hurdles for 25 years. A regional business director at King Pharmaceuticals, Mikel came to the pharmaceutical industry in 1985, hoping it would…

Coach to Win
How three master coaches create uncommon success
by Kim Wright Wiley
Everyone needs a little motivation now and then. But sales professionals need motivation in overdrive. Sales managers with huge discretionary budgets can go out and hire top talent to coach and motivate their sales teams. But who has such a budget? Well, turns out that throwing money at coaching and motivating is not the answer anyway. To help you bring out the best in your team, Selling Power magazine asked three motivational coaches – an…

Model Success at Sales Meetings
by Renee Houston Zemanski
There are many ways to use a sales meeting to train a rep to up-sell and cross-sell, says Craig Harrison, founder of Expressions of Excellence, which provides sales and service solutions. He suggests using brainstorming sessions, contests, games, role-playing, and participation to help reps identify up-selling and cross-selling opportunities. Here are some of his suggestions: 1. Look at sales as a service. It’s about helping clients grow or save money and succeed. 2. Ask seasoned…

Stop Being a Phony
by Renee Houston Zemanski
You know phonies when you hear them – with those voices that sound oh-so-professional. Maybe you’ve been to a presentation or seminar where you heard someone speak in strange octaves or use language not normally heard in real life. In that case, you will remember the speaker, but you probably won’t remember the message, say Eliot Shapiro and Eric Schor, cofounders and principals at EMS Communications, a company dedicated to teaching business professionals to become…

About Time
by Selling Power Editors
Taking control of your time puts you in greater control of your sales and productivity. Streamline your schedule with these tips: Make a to-do list. Before you leave work for the day, list the three tasks you must complete the next day. Choose tasks that make the greatest impact on sales. Rise early. If you get to work just 30 minutes earlier and stay 30 minutes later each day, you gain five hours each week.…

Can an Introvert Be a Successful Salesperson?
by Kim Wright Wiley
Introverts get a bad rap. They might be considered snobbish, disinterested, or even not that bright. “Many companies require you to be self-promotional,” says Jennifer Kahnweiler, author of The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength (Berrett-Koehler, 2009). “But introverts, even if they’re reluctant to toot their own horns, have qualities that can make them well suited to sales success. They listen more than they talk. They tend to have good writing and researching skills,…

Making the Most of Networking
by Kim Wright Wiley
“Everybody has contacts, but you can get bottom-line results if you make your contacts count,” says Lynne Waymon, cofounder and CEO of Contacts Count, a nationwide training firm specializing in business networking (contactscount.com). Based on a survey of businesspeople, Contacts Count has concluded that only about 15 percent of them have the networking skills they need to accomplish their goals. In response, the firm has developed a self-assessment test, 30 questions that gauge your mastery…

Attitude Monitor for Telephone Selling
by Selling Power Editors
A telephone salesperson for a large New York securities firm recently called our office to promote her services. When I asked to what she attributed her unusually cheerful and friendly attitude, she explained: "It's my attitude monitor. Before I make each call, I look up to a small 6 x 9 inch mirror. When I see myself frowning, I take a moment to relax; I take a deep breath and close my eyes while exhaling.…

Customers Are Too Valuable to Lose
by david el fattal
How can you win back a valuable customer who has stopped doing business with you? First and foremost, reestablish contact quickly - just as soon as you realize you haven't seen or heard from the customer in a while. Then, find out exactly why he's stopped buying from you. Don't be shy. Be straightforward and ask if it's because of an unresolved problem or a mistake you've made. Whatever the reason, fix it. Right away!…

New Ground Rules
Tips for collaborating and cocreating with your customers
by Lain Ehmann
The sales rep as trusted advisor is a concept that’s as dead as the dodo, it seems. Today’s customers expect – and we mean demand – that if you want to elevate yourself above commodity status, you need to cocreate. That’s right, because the new words on the street are “collaborative sales.” Cynics might regard collaborative sales as the same old consultative selling song, but collaborative selling can require a more hands-on approach. Instead of…

Features

Cover Story
The (Strange) Case of the Vanishing Sales VP
As the face of sales management shifts, the top spot is performing a disappearing act
by Heather Baldwin
VP of sales: exalted or extinct, you tell us. With time spent in this top sales spot steadily shrinking for the last 10 years, estimates now put the average tenure of a sales VP somewhere between 24 and 32 months. So if you recently moved into a VP of sales office, don’t unpack your bags. Even more alarming than the length of time sales VPs are spending in this position, however, is the recent acceleration…

Cleaning Up
Inside Ecolab's sales machine: an SP 500 enterprise sales force profile
by Theodore B. Kinni
At Ecolab Inc. salespeople keep promises. Absolutely. Because  the company’s global field sales force is personally responsible for delivering and maintaining the products and services it sells. “It’s exactly the right model, in our minds,” says Ecolab CEO and chairman Douglas M. Baker Jr., who worked in a variety of sales and marketing positions prior to joining the company 20 years ago. “At the simplest level, our salespeople are committing themselves to the customer and…

Get Connected
Strategies to turn social networking into a viable and productive sales tool
by Geoffrey James
New technological tools can be a great boon for sales, as well as a great distraction from daily tasks. Let’s face it, a rep could stay online all day and never close a sale. But used strategically and with a process and plan, social-networking tools can yield great results that do lead to closed sales. While such social-networking sites as Facebook and Twitter are often free of charge, social networking is not without cost. It…

The Hub of Sales
How to use HubSpot metrics to measure, manage, and improve the sales process
by Geoffrey James
Wouldn’t it be great if every sales manager had a crystal ball that accurately predicted sales growth? Well, put on your swami hats and take a peek into a forecasting future that’s already here. While the traditional sales metric (past revenue compared to forecast) has always been measured, today’s Sales 2.0 tools allow companies to examine performance at all stages of the sales cycle and take action as necessary to ensure that companies achieve their…

New Solutions for Managers

The New Frugality
How to motivate your sales team in a tight environment
by Lain Ehmann
Used to be, in the high flying days we seem unable to forget, that company cash for swimming pools, country-club memberships valued at $50,000, and maybe even wining and dining with a movie star or two were not unheard-of perks for a sales star. Such goodies made up a short list of perks high-level salespeople could count on “back in the day.” “The day” was when Monster.com rented blimps, buses were wrapped in Yahoo! purple…

It's in Your Hands
How reps and sales managers can stay in touch everywhere they go
by Geoffrey James
Although the pace of changing technology may be dizzying, for sales reps and the managers who track their progress, change can’t come fast enough. Specific change, that is. Change that’s useful, helpful, easy to adopt, and cost effective. Enter the mobile device. While some sales professionals may still use a PC at the office, many now access CRM while on the road using such smart phones as the RIM BlackBerry or the Apple iPhone, partly…

Talent Search
Two companies offer a new way to locate and qualify talented sales reps
by Henry Canaday
Richardson and HR Chally have teamed up to offer TalentGauge, an online tool for selecting and developing top salespeople and sales managers. Harry Dunklin, senior VP of sales readiness at Richardson, says several high-profile clients have already signed up to use this new solution. TalentGauge has two parts: The Selection Assessment helps select new sales talent and ensures that new hires are put into the right sales positions and receive the training and coaching they…

Back in the Saddle
How to grow sales revenues through more effective territory alignment management
by Heather Baldwin
It appears that the economy is sputtering back to life. Well, life as we now know it. And sales executives are under the gun. So what’s new, you ask? The renewed pressure to show improved sales results. CEOs are asking sales managers to increase revenue without the resources of prerecession boom years. That’s right – grow revenues, increase market share, and identify new opportunities for growth, but stay within the trimmed budget. Before you throw…

Faster, Better Leads
How Sales 2.0 creates a new and richer alignment between sales leads and marketing goals
by Henry Canaday
Sales 2.0 means using both technology and smarts to speed up the sales cycle, cut the waste, increase close rates, and boost revenue. It’s all about speed and efficiency. Sales 2.0 works chiefly through a much closer alignment between sales and marketing. And it is changing the sales process dramatically at a wide variety of companies.    Research director Ian Michiels surveyed 223 companies for an Aberdeen Group report on Lifecycle Lead Management. He picked the…

No Commissions? Are You Crazy?
How to motivate your reps -- in a whole new way
by Malcolm Fleschner
In a recent book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Riverhead Hardcover, 2009), best-selling author Daniel H. Pink describes a groundbreaking experiment conducted in the 1930s by psychologist Karl Duncker. The results of that experiment should be posted on every sales manager’s wall. Duncker would sit subjects down at a table next to a wooden wall and give them the following items: a shallow box of tacks, a candle, and a book of…