The Competitive Advantage

April 30, 2024

Bad Salespeople? Maybe You Should Blame the Sales Manager.

It seems like every couple of years, I need to rant about how bad selling is in our industry. I was hoping it would improve over time, but that just ain’t happening.

Here are three real sales stories – all targeted at me – that happened in just the last two weeks:

#1) I attended IIeX a couple of weeks ago, and as I was walking by an exhibitor’s booth, one of the sales reps in the booth literally stepped out in front of me, waved his arms over his head and yelled “Stop!” Really?!

September 19, 2023

3 Steps to Seller-Doer Success

The seller-doer sales model is employed by nearly all small-to midsize firms in our industry. It’s a challenging model that asks non-salespeople to BE salespeople. But often, they don’t want to do it, don’t like to do it or don’t know how to do it. So, what’s the answer?

While there are dozens of things you could do to maximize the results of your seller-doer program, the majority fall into three main categories…

February 7, 2023

Want to Achieve Your Sales Goals? Achieve Your Activity Goals First!

As I write this, it’s early February… and even though it’s only been a little more than a month since ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ went into effect, 90% of them have already been busted! Why is that?

December 13, 2022

Setting Your Sales Goal for 2023? You’re doing it wrong!

Right about now, management teams from firms all over our industry are gathering around conference tables to make plans for next year. And one of the key items on every one of those agendas is, “What’s our sales* goal for 2023?”

[*For those of you afraid of the word “sales,” insert “revenue” here.]

Too often, the management team will defer to the president or CEO, who picks a number ‘out of the air’ because that’s what he/she would like to see happen in the next year. Sadly, very little thinking has gone into the president’s sales goal… it’s mostly gut feel and hope.

November 29, 2022

Best Sales Question Ever?

One of the key attributes of every successful sales rep and seller-doer is their ability to ask questions. Ask enough of the right kind of sales questions, and the buyer will tell you everything you need to know to earn their business.

There are all types of questions – during the exploratory phase of a relationship – that can help you to understand the problems and challenges faced by the buyer. And by understanding what’s happening there, allow you to solve their problem, and in the process, win the sale.

November 8, 2022

The 4 Biggest Mistakes That Seller-Doers Make… and How to Fix Them

In the 10+ years I’ve been working with seller-doers in our industry, I’ve observed a number of common behaviors that impact sales. Negatively! Behaviors that the vast majority of seller-doers exhibit. Behaviors that are actually pretty easy to change and in doing so, would significantly help them to be more successful.

September 19, 2022

Really Bad Social Selling

For some reason, I’m a magnet for bad salespeople (or, at least, bad sales efforts). And it happened again this week… only this time, the offending sales rep violated two rules of social selling.

OK, quick backstory (all true)… I accepted a LinkedIn invitation from [let’s call him] Mike just last week. Mike is in our industry, fits the profile of a potential client for us and is also supplier to other potential clients… so a good person for me to be connected to. Also, Mike is a senior-level person at his company with responsibility for revenue growth. All in all, a really good connection. But then it went bad…

August 9, 2022

Sales Success is About Your Activity – the Quantity and Quality

I started my career at the DuPont company a long, long, long time ago as a Technical Sales Representative. [My parents were so proud!] On the very first day of training, the national sales Director – Jim Thorn – welcomed our three-man training class to the company. To this day, I still remember his words, “I don’t care if you make only one sales call a week, just hit your sales goal!” True story.

And while it’s a bit of an extreme example, that philosophy still reigns supreme in the world of sales today. As a sales rep or seller-doer, exceeding your sales goal IS the goal! And that’s great… but it’s your selling activity that makes it happen. Send no emails, make no phone calls, send no proposals and – I guarantee – you won’t sell anything.