Getting sales leaders to understand the importance of a strategic approach to sales performance improvement is often an uphill battle. So, when I get in front of a group of sales leaders, one of the things that I say to grab the participants’ attention is, “Somewhere in another building on the other side of town, there [...]
Filed under: Buyers | 1 Comment »
Sales 2.0 should be about the sales person—not just provided to them, but designed for them. After having read Joe Galvin’s and Donal Daly’s posts on the Sales 2.0 Network Blog—Marketing’s Opportunity with 2.0 and Scuttlebutt 2.0 (including the provided/designed comment above)—it occurred to me that defining what a salesperson would need from a competitive knowledge management [...]
Filed under: Competition, CRM, Sales 2.0, Sales Strategy, Sales Tactics, Technology | 2 Comments »
This afternoon I interviewed Brian Carroll for a podcast which will be published in two weeks. Many of our clients and subscribers are focused on lead generation these days, and I knew Brian would bring perspective to the issue. Brian discussed the ever-elusive sales and marketing alignment with respect to the two functions working together. He discussed not [...]
Filed under: Marketing | No Comments »
I recently spoke with a VP of sales for a $3 billion company. He told me that they used, (direct quote) “a little Miller Heiman, a little solution selling and a little Neil Rackham.” One of the many important points Rick Page (CEO of The Complex Sale and author of Hope is Not a Strategy and Make Winning a [...]
Filed under: Methodology, Sales Training Companies | 3 Comments »
That’s a question I’m often asked about business-to-business selling. I define science (in this application of the word) as the ability and willingness of a person to follow a set of processes in order to carry on the business of day-to-day selling. Examples would be formal planning, the use of checklists, dependence upon research, vigilant qualification, [...]
Filed under: Hiring | 3 Comments »
Eliot Burdett posted a comment on my post about lying on resumes. His own blog has a terrific list of challenges for those hiring sales people. Here is his seventh point: “Performing reference checks on someone who is employed is challenging due to confidentiality. (There are always managerial contacts that can be approached, although you may have [...]
Filed under: Hiring | No Comments »
I delivered a webinar sponsored by ISBM (Institute for the Study of Business and Markets at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State). It was moderated by Mary Donato, who is the Associate Director of ISBM and writes a column for Sales and Marketing Management magazine, as I do. (Mary is by far the best webinar [...]
Filed under: Marketing, Measurement, Presentations, Technology | No Comments »
I’ve been listening in on deal management and war room calls with our client who had gone through classroom-based sales training in late April. They’re a public company, so the pressure is on to close business by the end of the quarter. I didn’t expect the process work, training, technology support and coaching to have an [...]
Filed under: CRM, Measurement, Methodology, Sales Training Companies, Technology | 1 Comment »
One of the interesting things I get to do as part of my job is to interview smart business people with new approaches to sales effectiveness. One such person is Mark Morris, founder and president of My-Pipeline, an out-sourced relationship development firm. Mark owned, built, then sold a successful ad agency. In 2001 he started [...]
Filed under: Marketing, Pipeline | 1 Comment »
I saw this news release back in April. Xerox Corporation won a five-year blanket purchase agreement on an estimated $400 million U.S. Air Force contract for the placement of Xerox multifunction printers, network copiers and supplies. I’m always interested in learning what’s behind deals of that size, so I put a call into Xerox. Today [...]
Filed under: Big Wins | No Comments »
Geoffrey James, former BNET Sales Machine blogger and now Inc. Magazine columnist, refers to me as "the world's top expert on sales training," a designation I'm proud to accept.
ESR publishes independent evaluations and comparisons of sales training companies and their programs and services. (Think Consumer Reports, JD Powers, or Gartner.)
We also coach CEOs of leading sales training firms as well as individual sales trainers on how to grow their businesses and be selected more often in opportunities where they meet customer requirements.
I'm proud that ESR is recognized as the leading authority on sales training programs and sales performance improvement.
For the past twenty years I've focused my career on the area of sales performance improvement, sales effectiveness and especially sales training.
Presently I write the regular sales training column for Sales and Marketing Management magazine.
I can be reached at
+1 (508) 313-9585 Ext 706
