Sales Without Inventory
Now there's an oxymoron. Many of us who cut our teeth in the retail and catalog trade know that you have to own inventory to make sales. In fact, it's the largest balance sheet asset in many businesses. In the late 1990s, dot.com businesses with their "virtual inventory" concept tried to change all that-and guess what?
Qualify Your Deals With This Checklist
Are you going to get that sale? Maybe, and maybe not. The best way to evaluate your chances, and improve them, is checking for some critical elements. The more of these you can honestly say "yes" to, the more likely you are to win the deal. If you can't say "yes" to some, then get to work and turn the "don't know"s into "yes".
Is Your CRM Lying to You?
No names to spare the blushes of the poor CEO who posted it. But I just could not resist quoting and commenting on this question from Linked In. Is Your CRM Lying To You "Let me begin by saying that we use?????? and LOVE IT. However, what we find is that in many cases the data that sales reps load into our CRM is outdated and does not reflect the true value of the sales pipeline.
Do You Have a Sales Funnel in Your Process?
This is how I manage mine. It might seem complex, but the approach is based on years of experience. Chasing deals I'm not going to win is definitely not my idea of fun. First off I differentiate between funnel and pipeline. For me the funnel is individual company/project plans. Each one has a strategy, objective and action plan.
Sales Managers - Do You Have the Balls to Bite Back?
In a previous article I described 'Top Dog' as a high performing salesperson and questioned the judgement of defining 'high performance' in terms of sales quotas. 'Top Dog' maybe exceeding their sales targets but they maybe doing so at a high cost to the organization. What do I mean by this? Well, my research has revealed that 'Top Dog' is not that easy to manage.
Stop Cutting Start Selling!
The National Post, Profit Magazine and Canadian Business Magazine to name a few all report that companies who continued to invest in sales and marketing during a recession acquired more customers and emerged in a stronger position than companies who decreased their marketing efforts. Let's face it you can't cost cut your way to prosperity.
Efficient Sales Travel Planning - Increase Sales and Reduce Costs
There's no getting around it... for most of us in sales, times are tough. Sales managers everywhere are faced with shrinking travel budgets and getting pressure to reduce their cost of sales. One way to go is simply to stop traveling. This cuts costs, but is death to new business, and ultimately leads to a failed sales plan.
To Train Or Not to Train in Tough Economic Times
We all know that times are tough. Bad economic news bombards us 24/7. I graduated college in 1979 with a business degree. I was an enthusiastic, though still wet-behind-the-ears, future manager. I pranced out of the hallowed halls of academia and plunged chest deep into the murky waters of recession: circa 1980.
Losing the Competitive Edge
Historically people/countries became rich if they possessed more natural resources and used superior technology and skills. Having gotten rich first allowed them to save more than those in poorer lands. With more savings more could be invested in plant and equipment. More capital led to higher productivity and hence to higher wages.
What is the Net Present Value of Your Lead Stream?
Today, everyone is concerned about making their targets. Wouldn't it be nice if your lead stream projection looked like the graph to the right? These days, that is rare. Financial wizards focus on net present value (NPV) as a way to measure the value of something in today's dollars. In a recent conversation, a colleague and I came up with the notion of measuring the NPV of a lead stream.