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CSO Insights on Sales Hiring
A colleague forwarded to me a copy of the the Accenture report Connecting the Dots on Sales Performance. The report, which analyses the 2012 CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization Study, is a bit...
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How To Create A High-Performance Sales Culture
We are big believers that creating a winning culture is absolutely essential for any type of success from sports to raising children and it is particularly important in terms of driving superior sales...
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Get Valuable Feedback From Your Sales Reps
We recently started using tinypulse.com internally to get a sense of how our team feels about themselves and various aspects of working with us. Once per week, the service sends out a very brief survey...
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10 Steps to Building a Terrible Sales Team
There are countless articles on how to build a high performance sales team (including ours: How To Create A High-Performance Sales Culture), so we decided to take a lighthearted look at how not to...
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My New Sales Hire Won’t Make Cold Calls & How to Attack Sales Call Reluctance
We hear this story a lot. I recently hired a new sales person. During the interview process they seemed like a great hunter. They pursued me during the hiring process and actively closed me during our...
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Do looks and appearances matter in sales?
Image via stockimages/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net In a perfect world, appearances don’t have an impact on business, but in the real world, unfortunately, looks seem to matter. Studies have shown that people...
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The Importance of First Impressions in Sales
Leading sales trainer and author, Colleen Francis, recently had this to say about first impressions: Salespeople will generally have between 4 and 30 seconds to make a first impression on prospective...
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Three Ways to Make Ethics a Key Part of Your Sales Effort
Image via Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net It is no accident that many successful sales force’s are highly ethical. When customers are treated the right way and their best interests are made a...
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Start-Up Sales and Hiring Advice: Don’t Stop Selling Once You Hire Your First...
Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhoto.net We are approached by many companies seeking to hire their first sales person. This is an exciting time for young companies and often it is early success driving and...
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Key Sales Force Design Mistakes
Good article here by Five Common – and Avoidable – Mistakes in Sales Force Design, by ZS Associates. We have summarized theses mistakes and added our take. Role pollution – Sales people are involved in...
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Do "old school" sales roles exist anymore?
Modern selling has made the sales people in movies like Tin Men, Glengarry Glenn Ross and Mad Men look dated, and a lot of people turn their nose up at sales reps that hobnob with customers like Herb...
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Build a Sales Team vs. Outsource the Sales Function – Which is Right for You?
We continue to get a fair number of companies asking for our perspective on outsourcing the sales function and whether we are talking about independent reps or outsourced call centers, our answer...
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Accountability – the Key to Success in Managing Sales Reps
During a coaching call with a CEO yesterday, I was asked for my thoughts on some of the best ways to get sales reps to perform. We discussed the elements of effective sales management from strategy,...
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Colin Powell on Leadership and Recruiting Great People
Recently I finished reading the best selling book, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, which is a great book on a great leader and statesman who served under Presidents Bush Sr, Clinton and GW...
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Great Sales Management vs. Bad Sales Management/Micromanagement
Many sales managers, particularly new sales managers, have trouble striking the right balance between managing reps and letting them do their jobs. Too often there is micromanagement and not enough of...
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How to Make Sure Your Sales Reps Stay Balanced and Why That Matters
Sales rep burnout is a possibility on any sales team and this is especially true if you are driving hard towards big sales goals. If your reps become exhausted, they will lose interest in their work,...
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Language Used by Leading Sales Teams
Recently I wrapped up a consulting assignment for the VP of one the country’s leading enterprise software companies. During that time, I was around the elite level sales people on his team and I got to...
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How to Reduce Sales Rep Turnover
Building strong, stable and reliable sales teams is critical to sales performance, certainly in the long term. Sales rep turnover affects sales production, team morale, customer loyalty and ultimately,...
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The Most Controversial Sales Management Strategies and Tactics
Over the years I have been exposed to many sales management theories and strategies, some of them conventional and some of them less so. I have also seen many unconventional ideas evolve into...
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Embrace Pressure to Drive Sales Results
Pressure can be paralyzing for some and energizing for others. Just as top athletes experience butterflies before an important event, top sales people experience nerves before a big meeting or...
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