Posted on February 25th, 2009 by Dave Stein
ESR has a unique perspective on sales performance improvement. We don’t deliver sales training or sales consulting. We’re sales training industry observers, analysts, researchers and advisors to our clients on what works in sales effectiveness and training. Here’s what’s been going on at ESR: A large client in the financial services sector is working very [...]
Filed under: Buyers, Competition, Economy, Hiring, Measurement, Methodology, On the Road, Opportunity Management, Presentations, Research, Sales 2.0, sales process, Sales Strategy, Sales Training Companies | 4 Comments »
Posted on February 9th, 2009 by Dave Stein
When it comes to marketing, Miller Heiman leads the pack. I recently spoke with Elizabeth Vanneste, their Chief Marketing Officer. Elizabeth brought Miller Heiman into four telecommunications companies where she had previously worked. She joined the Miller Heiman team last June as a sales VP and took over marketing three months ago. Elizabeth shared with me [...]
Filed under: Buyers, CRM, Economy, Marketing, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Relationships, sales training, Sales Training Companies, Technology | 3 Comments »
Posted on January 16th, 2009 by Dave Stein
I believe in checklists. Clearly the medical community just got the message as well. A study published online by the New England Journal of Medicine this week shows that adopting a surgical safety checklist (PDF) reduced deaths and complications by more than a third. From the Wall Street Journal: Researchers collected data on nearly 8,000 [...]
Filed under: Big Wins, CRM, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Professionalism, sales process, Sales Tactics, Technology | 14 Comments »
Posted on January 13th, 2009 by Dave Stein
Followers of this blog are familiar with the high value I place on planning, competitive selling strategies, and political leverage for winning complex sales situations as well as for effectively managing strategic accounts. I was first introduced to Holden many years ago by Steve Slaughter, a salesrep who worked for me who had been through [...]
Filed under: Account Management, Big Wins, coaching, Marketing, Opportunity Management, Research, sales process, Sales Strategy, Sales Training Companies, Technology | No Comments »
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 December 23rd, 2008 by Dave Stein
Last July I was honored to be sent a final draft of Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig’s revised and expanded edition of Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play. Mahan and Randy are key members of FranklinCovey’s sales performance practice. (Here is a podcast interview I did with Mahan.) What is immediately significant about this [...]
Filed under: Book Recommendation, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Professionalism, sales process, Sales Training Companies | 4 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 6th, 2008 by Dave Stein
Chris Hens, President and COO of White Springs, presented at the Richardson client forum last week. The subject was in-context sales learning and reinforcement. With a background in sales training, Chris has a deep understanding of the challenges companies face with respect to sales performance improvement. White Springs has worked with Complex Sale, Holden, Huthwaite, Miller Heiman, [...]
Filed under: CRM, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Pipeline, Research, Sales 2.0, sales process, Sales Training Companies, Technology | 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 [...]
Filed under: Buyers, Economy, Opportunity Management, Professionalism, Relationships | 1 Comment »
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 »
