In sports, the secret of winning all the time is straightforward indeed… The sames secret is valid for sales as well…
Category Archives: Sales
What makes you a better salesperson?
As salespeople we all have one primary objective of a customer meeting… closing the deal. I am suggesting to replace this primary objective with learning. Learning about what really matters to the customer.
And in order to put it into practice you can look for the answers of three questions…
Redefining “winning” in sales
In sales, we are all obsessed with win/lose rates. We call it winning the deal when the customer decides to buy your product or service. If there is a winner, by definition, somebody has to lose. This approach makes selling a zero-sum game. I think sales can be a positive-sum game if we change the definition of winning.
Let’s do the exercise together and redefine winning…
How to improve sales effectiveness?
It is counterintuitive to refuse some large deals just because they are not profitable enough; it may sound strange to go back to market to prospect for new customers while you already have a historical customer database. It is a painful process to say no to your historical customers.To help make this shift, below are some tips I think can be helpful:
Who chooses your customers?
When salespeople lose a deal, most of the time, the reason is price, competition, lead times… in other words, losing a deal is primarily external. I have never met a salesperson telling me that it was his fault.
In fact, it is the fault of the salesperson. Not because they are not good at sales. It is because they choose the wrong customer. Let me give you an example…
Well handled vulnerability
Almost every day I talk to salespeople (but also friends, colleagues, customers, executives…) telling me that they are very open to learn. Yet, few of them realize that it means being exposed to be proved wrong. And even fewer people know how to deal with it. Thus, it makes them vulnerable…
About authenticity
I don’t believe in “trying to be” authentic in sales and life. Instead, I believe in remaining authentic. We are all born authentic, but somehow we lose it along the way. The real question is how to remain authentic? I don’t have the answer, but I know how we lose our authenticity. Here is my explanation…
Who are your best customers?
…calculating the profitability of a sales transaction beyond the margin requires some questioning. And the answers will show how effectively you are selling.
Selling at the edge of chaos
Although we like to pretend to do so (through the dashboards we generate from our CRMs), calculating the odds when facing a customer is very difficult. It is mainly because the customer’s buying journey is much more complex than we think.
Mentoring in sales
Training programs help salespeople gain new skills and competencies while coaching helps them achieve the behavior change, which makes the new learning last. Mentoring, on the other hand, helps accelerate the whole process…
Learning for Performance 