Posted on August 28th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Coaching is one of the most critical components of a total approach to sales effectiveness, but it is often underutilized and mismanaged. I’ve been enjoying my conversations with Jim Burns, CEO of Boston-based Avitage. Avitage is a small technology company that provides communication mechanisms and techniques for, among other things, delivering sales and marketing messages. In [...]
Filed under: coaching, Methodology, sales process, Technology | No Comments »
Posted on August 27th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I’m very pleased that traffic on this blog has grown significantly since I created it last April. With that in mind, I suspect some of you who are new to this blog may have missed some of the earlier posts. Here are the most popular, based upon this blog’s Top Posts stats: Observing a Sales Training Program (Part 1) [...]
Filed under: Buyers, Competition, Dave Stein, Humor, Measurement, Methodology, Opportunity Management, sales process, Sales Strategy, Sales Tactics, sales training, Sales Training Companies | No Comments »
Posted on August 26th, 2008 by Dave Stein
You’ve probably read a lot of articles by sales trainers entitled something like, “Why Sales Training Doesn’t Work.” Google that phrase and see what I mean. You can also look again at the title of this post for another example. The TAS Group’s CEO, Donal Daly, wrote a post on The Sales 2.0 Network blog that [...]
Filed under: Measurement, Methodology, Research, sales process, sales training, Technology | 5 Comments »
Posted on August 25th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I’m on a Northwest Airlines flight, headed home from an invigorating three days at a client’s annual sales retreat. It was held at Madden’s Resort on Gull Lake, 2½ hours or so from the Twin Cities. Nice place. No matter how long you’ve been doing business, if you keep your eyes, ears, and, most importantly, [...]
Filed under: Professionalism, Relationships | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by Dave Stein
Continued from Part 1. 7. Explain the reason this happened. “This happened because I didn’t double check the release dates on what I believed to be the latest copy of our development schedule. I was looking at an outdated copy.” 8. Explain why this will never happen again. “Our VP of Development was upset to [...]
Filed under: Account Management, Professionalism, Relationships | No Comments »
Posted on August 21st, 2008 by Dave Stein
At one time or another each of us has had to deliver bad news to a customer. Sometimes it’s your fault, sometimes not. Here are some examples: You made a mistake describing a specification or capability, leaving the customer angry and in a difficult situation. You’ve lost an existing customer to one of your competitors. Another customer [...]
Filed under: Professionalism, Relationships, sales process | No Comments »
Posted on August 20th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Debbie Antonelli of Richardson pointed out to me that a recent survey by ExecuNet has only 54% of sales executives are satisfied with their current job: Profession Percentage of Executives Satisfied With Current Job CFO/Comptroller 68% HR 65% Marketing 63% General Management 61% Sales 54% MIS/IT 53% Source: ExecuNet 2008 I’m being not cynical when I [...]
Filed under: Research | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 19th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Part of what ESR does is to identify, size, and prioritize the gaps that exist between our clients’ sales teams’ skill sets and what is required for them to win more business, sooner, and at higher contract values. There are different ways to categorize those gaps. For the purposes of this post, let’s look at basic [...]
Filed under: Account Management, Big Wins, Competition, Measurement, Opportunity Management, Relationships, sales process, Sales Strategy, Sales Tactics, sales training, Sales Training Companies | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 18th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Since I started this blog, I’ve been reading books on writing. (Mike and Jeremy, my editors at Sales and Marketing Management magazine probably wish I had begun upgrading my writing skills a long time ago.) I’ve also been reading the blogs of businesspeople who write well, such as Geoffrey James and John Caddell. My brother, Lee Stein, renowned in [...]
Filed under: Book Recommendation, Humor, Presentations, Professionalism | 5 Comments »
Posted on August 15th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I’ll be headed back to Ireland next month to facilitate two one-day workshops as part of the CEO Series for the Dublin Institute of Technology and Enterprise Ireland’s International Selling Programme. I’ll be working with 60 CEOs and managing directors over the two days. The topics require a bit of explanation. Each is a critical capability for a [...]
Filed under: Compensation, Competition, Hiring, On the Road, Relationships | 1 Comment »
