Category: Revenue Generation

My 2nd favorite word is No!

“My 2nd favorite word is No!” That’s what my former employee James was famous for saying. It’s great when your prospect does you the favor of saying no, but most times their actions and words will sound more like, maybe. That puts the pressure on you to decide when a maybe is really a no. The trick is to be confident about when to pull the plug on a prospect ...

April 20, 2021

Suspects vs. Prospects

Visualize a stack of 8 1/2 x 11-inch paper 4 inches tall. This is what I think of when I begin to reach out to a group of “suspects” to see if I can turn them into a prospect. My goal with this stack of suspects is to move them from the 4-inch suspect pile into 2 smaller piles – the yes pile or no prospect pile. When you begin ...

March 22, 2021

Your Funnel is a Fantasy

It appears that there were enough deals in the pipeline and yet here you are again, a few days left in the quarter and you’re only at 52% of your Q3 goal. The quarter started out as it usually does; a “full” pipeline, reps confident they will hit quota this month, and you reporting the good news to the board. But with only a few days left neither you nor ...

September 17, 2020

Are You a Self-Centered Seller?

No one likes a selfish person, but that’s how a lot of sellers come across. I tell sales reps and sales leaders daily: “It has to be all about them before it can be all about you before it can be all about us.” So why am I still getting emails, LI messages, and phone calls from marketing departments and sales reps only talking about the features of their product ...

August 14, 2020

Question Your Way Out of the Objection

Objections are born out of fear. Fear the prospect will spend money on something they won’t use or get value from, fear that they will look bad if it doesn’t go well, fear that others in the company won’t be open to switching vendors or spending money on some new strategy or vendor. The best way to deal with that fear is to better understand it and get to the ...

July 28, 2020

3 Clues that Your Sales Process is Broken

I worked for a CFO once who would regularly say, “That sounds like a broken process.” I got tired of hearing that, not because he was wrong, but because he was right. I often get calls from Founders or Sales Leaders asking if I will come in and evaluate their sales reps. because they aren’t sure they’ve got the right players on the team. I gently say to them that ...

February 18, 2020

“Stalled” is NOT a Stage

I was doing a pipeline audit for a client a few years ago when I ran across a sales stage called “Stalled”. What is this, I asked? “Oh- That’s where we put all the deals that we think will close someday but are currently stalled out. We don’t want to lose track of them.” WTF???? So as crazy as this sounds, they aren’t the only company I’ve run across with ...

January 10, 2020

Understanding the Impact of your Prospect’s Pain is What Will Close More Deals

By now I’m sure your sales team is good at uncovering the pain points and challenges your prospects face. But are they digging to get the negative financial impact those pain points are having on the prospect’s organization? Are they able to calculate what the cost to the company is for not solving the issue? Are they able to calculate the positive revenue or negative cost impact that purchasing your ...

December 9, 2019