Complex Sale? No Organization Chart? Why Not?

Why don’t sales reps don’t utilize org charts for complex opportunities they’re pursuing? Why don’t their sales managers insist that they do?  Those graphic representations of a company/division structure are invaluable in a complex sale. The most effective sales coaches I know refuse to help a rep with a deal unless they have an up-to-date [...]

34 Proven Tactics for Winning More Business

This post is for all my new colleagues in Ireland—sales executives and directors, VPs, MDs, and CEOs who have been attending Enterprise Ireland and The Dublin Institute of Technology’s International Selling Programme. I’ve facilitated seven days of programmes with just one left to go.  We’ve discussed sales effectiveness-building processes and strategies for building a sales [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Sales Training: 12 Obstacles We Must Overcome

Back in October I delivered the keynote at SMT‘s conference.  I shared with the audience ESR’s list of 12 obstacles that must be overcome for sales training to begin to have the degree of impact that a few the leading sales training companies are having with every client. Sales training is most often reactive. We [...]

More Excuses For Not Doing The Right Thing About Sales Effectiveness

Dave Brock wrote a terrific post about sales process.  It sparked me to write about an issue that has been troubling me. I’m not going to put forward any more arguments on the subject of whether or not process important in selling.  There is enough research out there—from ESR, from other research firms, and a [...]

Inside The Sales Training Industry (Part 1)

I finally got around to meeting my telephone and e-mail colleague, Tom Martin, face-to-face a few weeks ago.  Tom is someone I hold in high regard for his experience, integrity and deep understanding of the sales training industry. Tom is a 20-year veteran of the sales methodology and training industry, with a diverse set of [...]

Sales Playbooks

A few weeks ago the folks at Kadient briefed me on their approach and their sales performance improvement tools.  As you would expect, I posed the chicken-and-egg question with respect to what order a company should implement Kadient’s tools versus installing and implementing a sales methodology.  I liked their answers. I picked up a tweet [...]

ESR's Approach For A Sales Performance Improvement Initiative

As ESR is completing our Sales Training Vendor Guide we are updating a number of our models.  Here is a presentation of our sales training approach model that we deliver to project teams tasked with finding, evaluating, and selecting sales training companies. The content is based upon work we’ve done with clients during the past [...]