In the high-stakes nature of sales, first impressions are everything. And nothing feels or looks worse than slipping up when it matters most.

I recently attended a meeting that went terribly wrong, and this hard truth sank in. The sales team had sent executives at the prospective company 10 iPads preloaded with the sales presentation in hopes of wowing them at the meeting and gaining an edge on the competition. Read more...

This tip rubs a lot of people the wrong way, especially managers, but Im a firm believer in it. I know I will have more success if I have fewer prospects whom I can really focus on rather than a bunch of names I dont have time to deal with.

To get to this point it means you must have a prospecting process that allows you to qualify quickly whether or not the prospect is really a prospect or if theyre nothing but a suspect.

Way too much time is spent by salespeople chasing suspects. Many times the suspects are nice people they will engage you, the salesperson, so you think they must be a potential customer. You should never forget the first objective of prospecting is to qualify the prospect. Read more...

I recently spent a day on the golf course with my son-in-law. He and our daughter were visiting from North Carolina, and the sun was bright and the temperatures mild for a midwinter day in southern Mississippi. It was the first time Id picked up a golf club since late October, so I knew Id have to scrape a little rust off my game. Read more...

If you are a sales manager who wants to continue to develop your team and grow your business, there are questions you should be asking yourself.

They are simple questions but have far-reaching implications for how well you are preparing your sales force for the ever-increasing competition for the products / services you sell.

Value selling training experts suggest you take the quiz below to measure your sales success potential:

1. Do you make it easy for your customers to buy? Check to see that your sales process does not present barriers that make it confusing or complicated for your clients. Read more...

To save my fingers from early onset of arthritis, lets shorten the term from Key Account Management to KAM. I understand that it doesnt sound great, but I need my fingers to blog with.

I often get asked to deliver Key Account Management training at Salestrong, and having done so for a number of organisations, I notice that companies have vastly different views on what KAM is. Some simply call their larger accounts, Key Accounts, whilst others have a well defined KAM program. Read more...

Did you know that top sales performers spend between 75% and 95% of their time on high-payoff or worth-it actions? Low performers spend between 25% and 40% of their time on worth-it actions, and dont even notice that they are wasting their time.

They think theyre working hard, but produce little at the end of the day. If you are working hard but not selling much, there could be simple tweaks you can make to your system that could double your volume within three months. Read more...

Sales calls be it follow up or cold calling are essentially all a process of winning the customer over. This is where the divide starts between the effective sales professionals and the not so effective talents within the team.

In order for everyone to maximize their efforts and really bring a new form of revenue into the business the whole team needs to be focused, they also have to be clued up to as what will give them the helping hand that they need to really win over those customers. Read more...

Needless to say, Its essential that sales professionals are comfortable in their roles, but when comfort turns into complacency language barriers can start to appear.

In sales training what to say to customers and how to say it is covered extensively. These keystone skills are the backbone of any sales career and every good salesperson knows that they need to be constantly sharpened in order to remain effective.

Communication is the sales experts main tool. In negotiations a good communicator can make the difference between a non-sale and hearing the words sold. When following that age-old advice ABC Always Be Closing, the only way this is possible is by being able to freely and naturally talk to clients and customers. Read more...

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