Is price the real reason your proposal wasn’t accepted?

A question I’m often asked is, “What do we do when a customer comes back saying that we were not selected because our price was too high?”  It’s fairly common for clients to cite price as a reason for picking one vendor over another, but what you may not realize is that, more often than…

Read More

Subject Matter Experts Become Superhuman When They Master This Skill

To become a subject matter expert (SME) you need to have specific knowledge that makes you important and useful to an organization. To clarify the role of an SME, consider three common selling personas: an order taker, a salesperson, and a subject matter expert.  An order taker will simply provide the customer with the price,…

Read More

Why Sales is Not A Numbers Game

Why sales is not a numbers game

We have all heard the notion that sales is a numbers game. But, is it?  A Sales Formula of the Past In the past, the formula for sales went like this: You called 100 people and of those 100 people, 20 of them agreed to talk to you. Of those 20, 10 agreed to have…

Read More

What does it mean for a client to say “I Don’t Know”?

What does it mean for a client to say I Don't Know?

One of the most frequent questions I hear is how to decide if a business opportunity is real or not. When I cover this, I give the audience several helpful questions they can ask to determine if this opportunity is one they should pursue. After all, fact-finding during the discovery phase is a critical element of…

Read More

The Biggest Mistakes in Pricing Professional Services

One of the things a lot of businesses struggle with is creating pricing that is both fair and attractive. This is particularly difficult when a business sells services – those intangible things.  There are three main pricing models: Fixed-Fee Contracts, Time and Materials, and Time and Materials, Not to Exceed. Today I’ll talk about some…

Read More

How to develop and mentor your remote sales team

A question I get asked frequently is, “How do I manage and mentor my remote sales team?” First, recognize that managing your sales force is like managing any other adult.  As someone with two college-age children, I know that while I’d love to constantly monitor them, all I can do is provide a framework where…

Read More

How to Find — And Keep — an Irreplaceable Employee

Both employees and employers have an idea of what attributes make a great employee. Employers are always hoping to find that individual who is so good that they seem irreplaceable, while employees aim to be the person their team can’t live without. At a meeting of CEOs, Michael Gottlieb, founding partner of Momentum Law Group…

Read More

How Selling Services Is Different Than Selling Products

Anyone who tells you that selling services is the same thing as selling a product, probably hasn’t sold services before.  When you’re selling a product you can rely on it’s features and benefits. However, when selling services there are other variables to take into consideration. Services are performed by individuals. Anything performed by an individual…

Read More

How to Find and Attract the Right Sales Talent Post Pandemic

Attract the right sales talent

Sales talent is essential for the growth of any business. With the changes introduced through a global pandemic, some organizations have struggled while others have thrived. Regardless, there will always be a need for top sales talent. Ask yourself, how might your needs have changed over the past year? What do you need from your…

Read More