Special Event: Transform Your Sales Culture. Join Gene Marks and me on February 3, 2012, to learn how to upgrade your sales technology and increase your sales! Plus, you’ll get copies of our books – Everyone’s in Sales and In God We Trust, Everyone Else Pays Cash. For details, click here and to register, click here.
To succeed in 2012, you need everyone in your company to get behind the game plan right away as an active and supportive player. Make sure your strategic plan doesn’t become shelfware that only those in the corporate offices review. Without question, your strategic plan touches every organization in your company – so make sure everyone has a clear understanding of the strategy and is committed to achieving the goals.
So how do you know that you have a strong and vibrant sales culture? Indications of your strengths include many tangibles, such as stakeholder retention, super-engaged employees, new sales referrals, better-qualified sales professionals, and increasing revenue.
Voicemail. Email. More voicemail. A few more emails. Wondering what is going on. Making excuses in your mind why the prospect is not calling you back. Talking with your manager about all the possible scenarios as to why the deal you have been working on (and forecasting) has not closed. More email. Maybe another voicemail. Complete exasperation. Staring at your CRM and pipeline wondering, Will you ever be able to mark this deal as closed?
1. One individual stepped up to the plate. Every project needs an internal champion. The projects that succeeded had one. I’m not talking about a Microsoft-Trained-Dungeons-and-Dragons-IT-Propeller-Head either. They’re good only for backups and security…
I hope you will take an moment and enjoy my cover article: “Sales and HR: Perfect Together” that has been published in the July issue of HR Keystones, the Pennsylvania SHRM magazine!
Thought leaders earn respect. Sales professionals who distinguish themselves as being thought leaders are more likely to earn respect and get the deal closed. I believe this passionately and completely. Sales professionals as thought leaders? Is that an oxymoron? No! You heard it here first!
