Posted on October 31st, 2008 by Dave Stein
With all the talk about the “Bradley Effect,” and racial and ethnic bias around the presidential election, an article in the Wall Street Journal compelled me to perform a bias self-check.
The tests referenced in the article are hosted on Harvard University’s site. A method is presented that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods. [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Professionalism, Relationships, Research | 3 Comments »
Posted on October 29th, 2008 by Dave Stein
This morning I delivered the keynote speech at Richardson’s 2008 Client Forum at the Sofitel in downtown Philadelphia. I was honored to have been provided the opportunity to address their personnel, their clients and a few important business partners. Richardson is a company that continues to be a leader in the sales training arena.
Linda Richardson herself is [...]
Filed under: Book Recommendation, Marketing, Measurement, Methodology, On the Road, Presentations, Professionalism, Research, Sales 2.0, Sales Training Companies | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 29th, 2008 by Dave Stein
If you are not selling in a tightly-controlled, RFP-driven sales environment, you might want to consider this collaborative approach for getting your proposals approved. Proposal collaboration really makes sense now, during these unsure economic times. It provides the customer with the ability to directly control the content of your proposal as well as the price.
First, some background.
I’ve [...]
Filed under: Buyers, Economy, Opportunity Management, Professionalism, Relationships | 1 Comment »
Posted on October 28th, 2008 by Dave Stein
For the moment, we’re busy at ESR. During the past few weeks, even during this economic high-speed wobble, a number of companies became actively involved in exploring with us how they can improve the effectiveness of their salespeople. Another good sign: we’ve been selling more reports, especially our 2008 Sales Training Vendor Guide and our Understanding, Defining [...]
Filed under: Competition, Economy, Leadership, Sales Training Companies, sales training | 2 Comments »
Posted on October 24th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Start by asking your salespeople, one at a time, this question:
Specifically, what can we do as a company, and you do as a unique resource, to get each of your current customers through this difficult economic period?
If they’re focused on anything else, maybe they’re focused on the wrong thing.
Am I right about this?
Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Posted on October 22nd, 2008 by Dave Stein
To: Sales Trainers, Authors and Experts
If you haven’t been keeping up with the Bob Beck story this week, it’s worth learning about. Here are four posts to get you started:
Hey! Stop Plagiarizing My Content! (This blog)
Noted Sales Guru Caught Plagiarizing? (Geoffrey James’s Sales Machine Blog — Thanks, Geoffrey)
Plagiarism, Concealment or Coincidence? The Case of Bob Beck (Charles Green’s TrustedAdvisor.com)
Plagiarism, Concealment or [...]
Filed under: Professionalism, Sales Training Companies | 10 Comments »
Posted on October 21st, 2008 by Dave Stein
Last June I wrote a post containing my Sales 2.0 Competitive Knowledge Wishlist. I’d expect that any salesrep or manager who really knows how to employ advanced competitive selling strategies and tactics would love to have the Sales 2.0 capabilities in that list. We’ll, we are apparently closer than I thought to realizing that dream.
I spent some time once [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Competition, Marketing, Opportunity Management, Research, Sales 2.0, Sales Strategy, Sales Tactics | 1 Comment »
Posted on October 20th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Lee Allgood, a colleague from my days consulting with ERP provider MAPICS, sent me an email referencing a March 2008 survey performed by Sand Hill Group and Neochange.
Although the survey looked at enterprise software success from the software company’s perspective, some of the findings resonate with what we know about process alignment and user adoption related [...]
Filed under: CRM, Research, Sales 2.0, sales process | 4 Comments »
Posted on October 20th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I’ve been writing about measuring the impact of sales training for a while. ESR published a report on the subject. We know from our research that there is little to no measurement taking place—not by most sales trainers and not by their clients and customers. This is one of the factors that is preventing the degree [...]
Filed under: Book Recommendation, Leadership, Measurement, Methodology, Research | 1 Comment »
Posted on October 17th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I’ve been reading two books on measurement. It’s a subject every sales leader should be interested in because measurement is a critical requirement for the success of any sales performance improvement program or initiative. Many companies do nothing in this area other than to monitor unimportant metrics or focus only lagging indicators, such as year-to-date sales.
One of [...]
Filed under: Book Recommendation, Measurement | 2 Comments »
