Is Your Sales Team Suffering From Call Reluctance?
Do your salespeople make excuses instead of getting out and developing new business? Do your salespeople spend more time "being busy" than making contacts? Do you have salespeople who always seem to be "putting out fires" rather than prospecting for new business? Do they always have something else to do other than make prospecting calls?
How to Conduct Job Interviews With Sales People
When you are hiring new sales people, chances are that you would want to differentiate the performers from the "pretenders". Chances are, you will be given an interview guide to help you with the interview. But perhaps you should start with "the end in mind": what will be the right person who will perform up to your expectations, and will fit into your company for the position she is in.
Travel Seller's Compensation Program
In an era of unpredictable economics and profitability, travel agencies must lower base salaries to truly affordable levels - and yet still be able to attract high quality agents who can service increasingly knowledgeable and demanding customers. The key is to pay incentives for excellent service and revenue generated above an agreed-upon threshold.
How Your Procurement Practice Will Affect Your Sales Performance
The worst thing that can demoralise your sales force is this: your sales people made the sale for a very important customer after clearing numerous obstacles in a long sales cycle that seemed to take forever, ONLY to have the products delivered in poor condition. The customer became furious, asked for a refund, and then vowed NEVER to buy from you again.
Don't Be a Reluctant Caller
The great English actor, Sir Laurence Olivier, after a lifetime on stage and screen, once admitted that he suffered from stage fright his entire career. Huh? Hard to imagine that one of the most revered of all 20th century actors, who appeared in more than 120 stage roles, nearly 60 movies, and more than 15 television productions, could have had stage fright.
The Sales Manager's Most Important Decision
Imagine this situation. You are competing against two other firms for the same piece of business. One firm is the 900-pound guerrilla in your market and the other is a competitor of about the same size. You have the best technology, the big company has the most market share and brand recognition and the third competitor has the lowest price.
Will You Make it Through the Current Economic Turmoil? Part 2
Part 2 - How relevant is your current sales strategy? In the last article, the first one in this series, we discussed the importance of having the "right people on the bus". I also mentioned the exciting opportunity you have in front of you right now, without having to rush out and hire rainmakers and experienced sellers;
Sales Manager Careers - Discover How to Upgrade Your Sales Manager Career Today
As you consider your sales manager career you may want to keep in mind that there are three basic types of individuals in this world: - Those who make things happen - Those who watch things happen - Those who wonder what happened The first thing you want to consider when looking to land a sales management job is to assess yourself.
Problems That Sales Coaches Can Solve
Are you as a Sales Leader or Manager facing any of these issues with your team? Sales training often isn't enough to produce long term change in your sales team. Read this list to see if you might benefit from a sales coach: Having trouble with: Generating new customers Increasing returns on marketing campaigns Failure to consistently achieve sales revenue goals Reduce ever-lengthening sales cycles Increasing costs of maintaining an effective and productive sales team Keeping the sales team motivated Shrinking margins - mounting pressure to discount Protecting and developing dwindling key accounts Increasing erosion of market share Increased failure to forecast revenue with any degree of accuracy Increased quantity and ferocity of competition and being outsold by competitors Limited product knowledge in the field Declining customer satisfaction and increasing customer expectation Global market rationalization Increasing number of stalled sales opportunities Finding and keeping good people Managing salespeople who plan and manage their time and territory by the seat of their pants - they don't seem to have a game plan or a strategy as to how they are going to win Reducing the "last three weeks of a sales quarter" syndrome where everyone scrambles to try and pull in as much as they can to hit sales targets and we end up giving away our margin The current economic crises are impacting on sales team's ability to consistently achieve their sales quotas Operating in markets where there seems to be more and more "gatekeepers", buying committees, tendering processes, RFPs, etc.
Consistent Sales Growth
I'm sure that some of you are saying, "We have sales growth." I'm sure that you do. However, is it consistent? Is it predictable? Is it at the level that you projected when you did your budget last year? Is it enough to overcome an unexpected loss of revenue from accounts, drop in rates, etc.? One of the problems about total revenue that I'm hearing this year is that "we're on target with new sales, but revenues are down because.