Through our blog posts, we are looking to share not only the value that interim and fractional sales leaders bring to an organization. We also cover a variety of topics and share our experiences, all of which are part of the “day-in-a-life” of a sales professional.
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Discounting reduces the value in the eyes of your customers. And that is terrible news mid- and long-term. And even worse, it is often meaningless for the short-term. If you are successful in closing a deal by offering a discount, the psychology that is at work when you do has detrimental effects.
Read MoreMost of your prospective customers will not buy from you instantly. You cannot simply introduce someone to your product or service once and expect that they will go the rest of the way by themselves. Studies have shown that only about 2% of sales will close after the first meeting.
Read MoreEmpowerment allows a team of people to achieve defined goals without explicit leadership intervention as each individual operates autonomously within their set of skills and responsibilities.
Read MoreWhen someone says, 'Just tell me the price,' I just tell them the price. Someone who says that clearly has their guard up. This person likely doesn't want to be sold. You won't get anywhere trying to dissuade them from jumping right into pricing. They'll likely dig their heels in even further and feel like you're hiding something.
Read MoreLeaders are amazing, not having a sales leader has consequences: indecisiveness, disorganization, ethical slips, fragmentation, no vision, negativity, lack of focus and trust, no talent retention, low energy, surrender, and fear.
Read MoreIf there was a playbook for scaling with a perfect record, it would be legendary and omnipresent. There is not! One of the standard steps, though, seems to be the hire of a VP of Sales. This type of VP stays in place less than a year and in hindsight turns out to be a costly endeavor for a cash-strapped start-up.
Read MoreThe founder has taken the product to potential clients, hired a couple of salespeople, and sold it a few times. At this point do not HIRE your first VP of Sales! The executive recruiting process is going to take 6 months, cost $50-70k, and you will fire the person after 12-18 months and start over.
Read MoreThe cornerstone is “global,” the idea of having a disconnected team spread out around the world. I suggested a few ideas on how to bring the disconnected team together earlier, and in this article, I want to expand on this and provide a broad list of tools.
Read MoreConsidering everything else equal, and needing to decide on one format, which is the best? I will go out on a limb and say: face-to-face one-on-one oral communication, aka a conversation, is the best opportunity to ensure the sender and receiver can get on the same page.
Read MoreSit back and think about the leaders around you. I am sure as you do this, each one of them will come to you associated with a label that is reflective of their leadership style. Your label may not be scientific. Maybe your label is simply “Good,” or “Bad,” relative to your own experience.
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