Sales Training Journal

Discovery sales calls can be daunting; however, they are the central plank to uncovering if an opportunity exists for your product or service with the customer. That said, a discovery sales call is a great opportunity to understand your prospects’ business and their challenges and introduce yourself to them. It is important to note that usually salespeople get one shot at these types of sales conversations. This is your stage to build credibility, show that you care about their business, and take the first steps in creating value, which will set you on the sales process path. Think of the answers you receive from the sales questions as the framework upon which you will build your value proposition and proposal. If the framework is weak, not constructed properly, or vague, it will fall. This is the difference between a sale that flounders on rocks and a deal that builds a successful relationship.   The Purpose of Needs Discovery To be really successful in sales, it’s ...

A series of tips on maximizing sales efficiency because at some point in your sales role, you’ll need to address this and make selling more efficient. This blog article isn’t about being more productive, but you should focus on sales activity that makes you more productive and more efficient. You’re always looking to become more efficient because you may uncover some tremendous opportunities for improvement when you map your entire sales process out from start to finish. Don’t leave anything out. However, don’t create things to measure just to have things to measure. We are all in data overload, and the last thing you need to do is to create more useless data. It’s a time waster for everyone involved. It’s not about being viewed as cutting edge or super intelligent or slicker than everyone else. It’s not about being impressive; it’s about driving your sales efficiency. Ch...

Maximizing sales effectiveness and revenue growth is a challenge facing not just sales management but front line salespeople as well. If sales effectiveness is about the ability of a sales team to successfully convert prospects into customers and achieve sales goals, the question is, how does a company go about boosting sales performance? What are the various strategies, techniques, and tools the sales organization will use to improve the efficiency and productivity of the sales process?. In a nutshell, the sales strategy defines sales tactics, and sales tactics define sales effectiveness—the type of actions salespeople take to open opportunities, move deals forward, and then close. To maximize sales effectiveness, then you must first understand the externals in your business and then make choices about how your strategy proposes to deal with the opportunities and threats inherent in those market realities. In any business, value is created or...