Category Archives for "Sales + Leadership"

How to (Profitably) Manage Your Time

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

Given how ridiculously easy it is to prove the value of time, salespeople are incredibly cavalier about giving it away. Trust me when I tell you that the average salesperson easily gives away 3-5 hours per week. In many cases, the number is as high as 8 hours per week. Every week. But what if you had that time back and you used it to do just one thing: develop new opportunities? Is there a possibility your results would change in the next three months?

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Effective Salespeople: Why Only 23%?

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

I’ve never known a company to accept 60% production efficiency, or 75% data accuracy. In the realm of BIG numbers (think Amazon or UPS), a company can’t afford to accept even 99% as a benchmark for success! Amazon, for example, ships approximately 1.6 million packages per day, which would mean – at 99% accuracy – 16,000 mistakes PER DAY. So, here’s what I want to know: Why do companies routinely accept 1-out-of-4 as the standard for the percentage of effective salespeople?

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3 Words Elite Salespeople Embrace

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

The problem is that most salespeople don’t want to be responsible when they fall short. Instead, they conjure up a variety of excuses. It never seems to be their fault when they fall short. Elite salespeople, on the other hand, understand that the bottom line is about results, and excuses simply get in the way of finding a way to hit the numbers.

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Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

In the workplace, managers never have enough time. “I don’t have time” is the most common excuse managers offer up for failing to do the most critical leadership activities – communication, training, development, and planning. It’s not that managers don’t understand they need more time to do those things; they just never seem to have any extra time laying around. However, although managers constantly complain they never have enough of it, it’s amazing to see how poorly they invest what time they do have.

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