Posted on December 29th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Pick one or more of the resolutions below. Commit, execute, enjoy the results. I’ll never hire another sales rep who can’t get the sales job done. First, completely understand the position and the skills and traits required to be successful. Evaluating whether a candidate meets those requirements requires a series of two to three structured [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Buyers, CRM, Economy, Hiring, Leadership, Measurement, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Research, sales process, Sales Strategy, Sales Training Companies | 6 Comments »
Posted on November 19th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Geoffrey James ran a wonderful series of posts last week. He spent six months collecting nominations for whom he eventually determined are his ”Sales Gods.” I literally went to his blog first thing each day to see who he was featuring. Although this post, What We Can Learn from “Sales Gods”, is the last post in the [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Leadership, Professionalism, Relationships | No Comments »
Posted on November 13th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Donal Daly, CEO of The TAS Group, wrote a great post (Early failure is better than late failure) on his company’s blog that is more than worthy of your consideration. (Disclosure: The TAS Group is a subscriber to ESR’s research.) In the post Donal discusses the not-often-enough-overcome challenge of effective qualification. From the post: When [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, coaching, Competition, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Pipeline, Sales Training Companies | 2 Comments »
Posted on November 7th, 2008 by Dave Stein
No matter what side you were on, here are a few observations, affirmations and truths, post-election, with respect to selling: Strategy and tactics are equally important. The purpose of executing tactics in a sales campaign is to drive a well-founded strategy. Tactics without a strategy is like playing darts with your eyes closed. Message! Not [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Book Recommendation, Competition, Leadership, Marketing, Professionalism, Relationships, Research, Sales Strategy, Sales Tactics, Technology | 3 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 [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Competition, Marketing, Opportunity Management, Research, Sales 2.0, Sales Strategy, Sales Tactics | 1 Comment »
Posted on October 9th, 2008 by Dave Stein
I came upon a fascinating article in Fortune about, Vivek Gupta (right), the top IBM salesrep in the fastest growing market in India. So many articles in the mainstream media about sales people or selling sound like they have been written by journalists. Fortune’s Jessi Hempel has either been in sales or is a heck of a [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Buyers, Professionalism, Relationships, Sales Strategy | No Comments »
Posted on September 23rd, 2008 by Dave Stein
An interesting exchange transpired during the CEO workshop I facilitated in Dublin last Thursday. The subject was qualifying what could be potentially be very large opportunities with Fortune 100 companies. The CEOs and Managing Directors that attended the workshops represent small to mid-size Irish companies. Bernie Cullinan, CEO of Clarigen, was one of the participants. At one point [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Relationships, Research, Sales Strategy | No Comments »
Posted on September 15th, 2008 by Dave Stein
For those of us who are students of competitive selling, every day of this presidential race is a crash course in competitive strategies and tactics. As I write this, the polls (right or wrong) say that the Republicans have closed the lead the Democrats had been holding. McCain slowed Obama’s momentum and has created some of his own. [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Competition, Sales Strategy, Sales Tactics | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 11th, 2008 by Dave Stein
The U.S. Defense Department just announced that it has put the evaluation for their new tanker on hold. From the recent BusinessWeek article: “Because of the politics and emotions behind the contract to buy new refueling tanker aircraft, neither Northrop nor Boeing gets the prize for now.” BW sure has that right, especially the word “politics.” Months [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Buyers, Competition, Opportunity Management, Sales Strategy | 3 Comments »
Posted on September 3rd, 2008 by Dave Stein
Have you been following the U. S. Air Force’s evaluation of Boeing and Northrup/Grumman EADS for the $35 billion contract for the next generation tanker? If not, you’re missing a rare opportunity to observe a big-ticket, complex sale in real time. I’ve written a few posts on this subject before. Here is a quote from a BusinessWeek [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, Buyers, Competition, Sales Strategy | 6 Comments »
