Tag Archives for " Sales Process "

3 Levels of Sales Leadership (only one creates top performance)

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

The most significant objective as a sales leader is the creation of action plans on specific accounts. Not plans like ‘making more calls.’ Or ‘improving closing ratios.’ Or selling more of a specific product. Which may all be great ideas, by the way, but they are necessarily incomplete.

The reason to create plans is that it is much easier to manage a salesperson’s activities when it is directed towards the right types of calls and the right size of opportunities. It is much easier to troubleshoot performance issues when you understand the intersection of results (keeping score), activities (which leads to the score), AND specific plans (the application of those activities in a context).

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Planning is So Boring (said the broke salesperson)

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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The REAL Problem with Customer Objections

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

Handling customer objections can be a challenge. But the REAL problem is trying to figure out the difference between a genuine objection – a legitimate barrier – and the kind of objection that’s designed to communicate something entirely different: “I’m really not interested, but I don’t want to come right out and say so.” Been there?

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The “Product Pusher” Trap

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

One of the key challenges in moving to the Top 5% of the sales world is breaking through the “Product Pusher” trap. You know you’re in that trap when you frequently compete on price; or you routinely submit proposals that don’t get responses; or lots of sales calls end with you leaving (or sending) a business card and a brochure.

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