The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation

If you’re in sales management or especially in a higher level sales executive position and you don’t know who the Sales Executive Council (“SEC”) is, you should. They’re part of the larger Corporate Executive Board, a $440 million public corporation that provides insights and tools to executives of large corporations through a participatory membership-based model. [...]

ESR Publishes 2011 Virtual Sales Training Report

In Q3 2011, ES Research Group, Inc. conducted an important survey to explore the impact that technology, evolving media, and new delivery methods are having on the people and organizations that develop, deliver, and purchase sales training. The results show that, over the past two years, rapid advancements in technology, combined with a sluggish economy, [...]

What Are the Real Inhibitors to Effective Selling in Your Organization?

When companies come to us to understand how their salespeople can sell more effectively, we don’t just look at sales training.  One of the foundation exercises we conduct with sales leaders consists of a look at inhibitors to effective selling at multiple levels.  What follows are real examples of those challenges from sales leaders with [...]

Sales 101 Isn’t Enough, Says a Panel of Experts

Yesterday I had the pleasure of hosting an  sales expert round table hosted by Focus.com entitled, What Advanced Selling Capabilities are Required to Win Today? Focus.com came to me asking what topic I’d like to discuss.  The list is always long, but it occurred to me that a discussion among five experts in advanced selling [...]

Now THIS is Sales Leadership!

During 2010, ES Research Group was retained by Bob Seiler, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at PR Newswire.  Bob was new at PRN and had determined that deploying a selling methodology was a critical strategy to help support company growth objectives.  Elevating selling performance with the relevant training, technology, and reinforcement was required [...]

Miller Heiman’s Advanced Concepts

Last week Miller Heiman announced Advanced ConceptsSM, their new multi-media, virtual learning offering. Clients who are using Miller Heiman’s content have been saying they want to take their application of the Strategic Selling process to the next level.  The new tool provides content above and beyond what is typically offered in Miller Heiman’s programs.  Miller [...]

Kadient Is Serious About Sales Effectiveness

The more I know about them, the more I’ve been impressed with Kadient.  I really like their playbook approach, the people I’ve met on their team, and their straightforward, no B.S. approach to sales effectiveness.  After receiving an email from Rich Berkman, Vice President, Sales Enablement Strategy, about his new eBook, Dive Deeper into Your [...]

Getting CRM to Deliver for Salespeople

A significant factor contributing to sales performance improvement is the employment of technology that will enable more effective and more efficient selling.  This technology comes in many sizes and flavors from marketing automation software from companies like Genius to post-sales call feedback and activity analytics tools like Front Row Solutions, and a lot in between. [...]

Dealmaker Genius. There Are No Excuses Anymore.

Prior to our briefing last week by The TAS Group executives in advance of today’s announcement, we were somewhat skeptical.  We thought claims they made in their YouTube videos were more than a bit outrageous, like this one from their press release: “Dealmaker Genius uses over 20,000 core knowledge elements and more than one million [...]

Can An Independent Sales Trainer/Sales Consultant Provide Real Value To A Large Company?

Yes. That sole trainer (or two- to three-person firm) won’t be rolling out simultaneous live instructor-led training classes in 20 countries.  Nor will they be getting in front of every one of 3,000 reps in the North American operation of a large client during a rapid 6-month deployment. But we have seen one- to three-person [...]