By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership
The reason that I love selling so much is that I love to compete. I love that I can adjust, change directions, learn new skills, and develop new ideas in order to create more success. Selling is a dynamic enterprise that rewards initiative and drive and excellence. But we in the profession are often guilty of doing a HUGE disservice to the profession.
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By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership
Few managers are exemplary leaders. Proving this takes about 30 seconds. Yes, I know management and leadership are slightly different. We don’t have to have that silly argument. If you are a manager, and people report to you, then you are a leader. Period. You might not be any good at it, but you’re still the “leader.” My question is this: Why in the world do companies continue to promote top performers to management, fail to train them, and then COMPLAIN when they fail to perform as expected? Do YOU think you’re the exception?
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By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership
Until you have clarity on your daily and weekly activities, generated as a result of a defined sales plan, you’re just winging it. And, you’re wasting precious hours every week that could be used to prospect, build your funnel, and create more customer contact. If you think about it, that may be the biggest loss in failing to plan – the time you lose as a result of indecision or filling time while you wait for the next customer emergency. But not to worry. Your competitors are probably in the same boat. You hope.
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By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership
Customers clearly care about a lot of other things other than price. In addition delivery and service and follow-up, they also care about support, and training, an innovation, and efficiency, and a dozen other things. But, for some reason, you can’t get them to focus on those things – not until they’ve beaten you up for a better price. The fact is, you will never get to the top of the sales leaderboard by cutting your prices. And until you learn how to avoid the commodity trap, you are pretty much screwed.
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