Sales Lead Prospecting Never Ends

February 18, 2010 – 9:14 am

I sell for a living. My first sales job paid commission only. Pay checks, if one earned one, came once per month. I ran scared each day banging the phones, prospecting my butt off. The daily goal 10 leads. 10 leads per day harvested from 300 plus calls per day. 50 leads per week put money in the bank. Casual Sales guys in the office, confident of sure success, dialled less, if at all. These stalwarts counted cash dripping in from current clients, or counted on a deck of leads, index cards back then, positioned next to the phone. Read more >>

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How to Lose a Sales Deal

February 17, 2010 – 12:46 pm

Lose sales deals? Well I am an expert in this topic. My list of failures can feed a hungry horse because I have been in a lot of sales cycles over a lucrative, sometimes bumpy 20 year plus sales career. I always ask 3 questions, win or lose, and suggest you do to:
For more on How to Lose a Sales Deal go here >>

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Sales Professional Winning Mindset

February 15, 2010 – 8:24 am

Sales Pro Mindset Seeks No’s not Yes’s

Qualify all Sales Stages and all Prospect Touches

I remember a sales book, read many years ago, that told me sales people get paid by NO’s. Tom Hopkins wrote this and crazy it seemed. Mr. Hopkin’s wrote if a deal paid $1000 to the sales person, and if the sales person asked for 10 orders per day, winning one, then each no paid the sales representative, $100. Make sense? Read more about sales professional mindset >>>>

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Sales Pros Plan Each Call

February 10, 2010 – 11:10 am

The late great football coach, Bill Walsh, scripted the first 20 plays of each game. The plays, diagrammed and planned, worked more often than not. This level of detail, unusual even in the NFL level, won several Super Bowls for the San Francisco Forty Niners.

For Sales Planning Strategies go here >>

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Boost Ecommerce Sales with Better Site Search

February 10, 2010 – 10:26 am

Site Search Optimization Pains

No matter how much real world web experience online marketers have, problems delivering productive search results abound. SEO, or search engine optimization, articles flood the internet. SEO companies boast of high rankings obtained if their services are bought. But the facts tell a different truth; optimizing search results is hard work. This white paper tells you how to Accelerate Your Site Search with Better Product Data. Problems like the below may affect ecommerce site searches:

>>Site searches that flood the searcher with results — search for “hammer” and any product with the word “hammer” in the description is included.

>>Site searches that return too few results — searching for “wastebasket” doesn’t return products which should be included, because the site sells “trashcans.”

>>Site searches that return the wrong result — in spite of “built in intelligence” and parametric search ability, search results are incomplete or not relevant.

What is the Site Search Answer?

While site search technologies grow in sophistication, Google changes search criteria. Staying abreast with current best practices is a chore. Customers or potential customers must be able to find products, if the search is flawed, the customer clicks on to another site. Expensive work driving site traffic is wasted.

This executive overview is a framework for re-thinking site search challenges. Beginning with a brief explanation of how product data gets buried in the first place. It continues with survey findings and associated problems and follows with product information management techniques that back fill SEO limitations. And concludes with initial steps companies can take to take advantage of the best search technologies.

Please go here to receive this Free Site Search overview:

http://www.pim-data.com/site-search-accelerate-sales

Or call 817-371-1676 or email to info@pim-data.com

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Control Sales Cycles

February 9, 2010 – 2:20 pm

Sales managers gripe about long sales cycles and sales guys point to long sales cycles causing sales attainment misses. I had a sales manager that told the sales team to find projects. And this is good advice.

Prospects, like ice cream, comes in 186 different flavors. One type, fire hot, sizzles when called, just ready and raring to go. To read more about controlling sales cycles >>

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Buyer Motivation in Sales Cycles

February 8, 2010 – 9:51 am

Back in December, I worked a deal with a terrific motivation. The board dictated to the CEO and downward, to invest capital in growth initiatives. Sitting on cash, the company gained weak returns on capital based on low interest rate. The goal was fund strategic projects to lift top line growth and to beat the return on investment  paid by the low interest rates. This company, eye on the ball, is thriving and seeking faster growth.

To read more about Buyer’s Motivation please go here >>

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Toss in a Sales Change Up Now and Then

February 1, 2010 – 3:23 pm

Yes, sales is a series of repeatable, measurable steps. The sales pro winds his way down the path from Prospecting to Winning the deal. And many steps, like the cold call process are repeated over and over. But sometimes sales pros, so deep in the woods, can not see trees and the lack of fruit to be born. Step back and make a change.

Change up your lead generation. Kick off a direct mail piece or start a blog. Write a new informational widiget and offer to your current prospects as an optin piece. Start a newsletter. Get creative, fire up new ideas and then act.

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Sales Process: Is yours defined?

January 26, 2010 – 2:12 pm

Often,  I ask executives, “What is your sales process?” And often blank stares follow. “What do I mean sales process?”  And with no surprise, the CEO is the culprit more often than not. The thoughts swirling in his executive head “is this guy is an idiot, our product is so great we just show up.” Show up and throw up is not a sales process.

A sales process has  two characteristics; the process is defined and is measurable. Consider a sales team with 4 directs and a sales manager. The Monday meeting starts with “what are your top 5 deals?”

Each salesmen, in turn, describes deals in detail. The meeting eats time and money, lasting 2 hours. Meetings are ok but what if the sales process had teeth? All would know what “qualified” meant, what each sales stage which are the building blocks of the sales process is. How to define each stage is trained and is now communicated in the sales meeting.

As the process is worked by each salesman, metrics are collected. Close rates at each stage builds accuracy into a forecast. Now the sales team can see where deals reside, in a process. And best of all the process can be improved.

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Sales Management Software for KISS Principle

January 26, 2010 – 8:33 am

KISS: Keep it Simple is Best Sales Software Approach

Big CRMs like Salesforce.com are built for marketing and executives. Sales people, a distant third, have usage issues. The simplest tasks, like entering a new lead, force forms to open and unwanted choices to be made. This wastes time. Busy sales people, the real pros need to get to next call, not spend hours in a CRM.

Full CRM has a place in the small business. Top 3 business needs may be tracking marketing, product information and support. DataForceCRM.com offers a full CRM complete with Order Management, Quoting, Inventory and Portals for only 15 USD per month. This is a good value.

But knocking on the sales guys heads to fit the full CRM is a mistake. Salesmen corral prospects, follow up calls, qualify leads to sales opportunities and win the business. Sales men often work with partners like distributors or manufacturer’s reps, or if a partner, with the OEM. Collaboration is important and eats sales time. For this reason onlinesalessoftware.net is offered. This sales management tool, with none of the fluff of CRM, tracks leads, routes sales data to partners, and even automates the lead update process. With onlinesalessoftware manufacturers gain accurate data from all sales channels, directs and partners.

OnlineSalesSoftware is driven by Workbenchs. These platforms for data entry and edit, are simple, and behave very much like excel. Users, without expensive training, ramp up fast to enter and edit sales data. This real-time or near real-time approach accurizes the sales forecast and sales pipeline.

Trial this sales management tool here:

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