Sales Management
3 Lessons On Talent from College Football, Week 2
It’s officially football season, which means you may be getting a dose of analogies and metaphors involving the 85 scholarship limit, cover 2, the veer and shoot, and the SEC in Birmingham, not Washington D.C. To get this fall going, let’s extract some lessons from Saturday’s games to help you develop your sales organization and…
Read MoreHow To Forecast Sales Part 2
In the last article, I wrote about forecasting and the importance of a proper sales process to get it right. Without the right sales stages and milestones, you get the wrong signals. You hear a lot of, “Deal looks good.” “They loved our demo.” “They like us a lot.” And you have 0 idea what’s…
Read MoreHow To Forecast Sales Part 1
You’ve got a goal this year. A number. A target. Will you hit it? Will your team? It’s what you want to know. It’s what your CFO wants to know. It’s what your partners or investors want to know. Forecasting is not as sexy as closing a big deal, but it’s nice if you like…
Read MoreSales Myths CEOs Believe
There are a lot of myths in the world of sales. Unfortunately for CEOs who don’t come from a sales background, they get fooled by these myths. They mistake them for “conventional wisdom” because they hear them so often. Even for CEOs who come from a sales background, it’s easy to believe what they hear…
Read MoreMaking Your Sales Process…Work
Ask yourself if this sounds familiar. You ask one of your employees or team members about an opportunity with a potential new customer. “Looks good,” he says. “Why’s that?” you ask. “They liked what we had to show them. I feel good about it.” You ask, “What’s the next step?” “I’m waiting to hear back.”…
Read MoreLessons From A 73mm ARR Company, 1 of 2
Probably an eight minute read In October, I got a call from a company’s COO out of New York. We’d talked before, and I’d done some training for his company, so he was familiar with me. He said, “Adam, we need to talk. Sales missed their goal last quarter, and this one isn’t looking…
Read MoreNetworking Like a Pro: 6 Must-Take Actions for Referral Success
Some businesses run on referrals. It’s usually because: A. Actually a lower cost of sale to have people refer business to you than search for those deals one by one; B. The service is purchased based on trust (consulting, law, etc…); C. Someone’s afraid to prospect. Let’s skip category C for now, and focus on…
Read MoreIn Sales, Sometimes You’re The Problem
In the middle of a 0-10 football season in high school, one of our coaches said, “Everyone says you suck. Just don’t suck.” To which one of our players responded, “Thanks for the inspiration, Lombardi.” After the laughs wore off, there was some truth to what our coach said: sometimes, having success doesn’t mean being…
Read MoreMission ImPossible: 4 Steps to Finding the Truth in Your Pipeline
Mission ImPossible: 4 Steps to Finding the Truth in Your Pipeline Let me know if this scenario sounds familiar… You’ve got a sales team (of some sort). You’re invested in marketing. You’ve got some sales leader or a group of them who are responsible for “driving revenue.” And you’ve got goals for growing your…
Read MoreThe Sales Engine and How We Build It. The Basics.
The Sales Engine and How We Build It. The Basics. At a certain point in consulting, you start realizing you’re doing the same thing over and over again, even if you didn’t mean to. You see that most companies need the same things, to different degrees. So in an effort to make my own life…
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