When is the last time a stranger surprised you? Made you stop in your tracks, jerked you out of your “zone” and piqued your interest? Every once in a GREAT while, I get a cold call from a sales pro that really makes me stop and listen for at least

Dear Salesperson, It’s time for a heart-to-heart. I do appreciate your questions. I do. But I find myself giving the same answer over and over and over: “How do I get buyers to listen to me? I can’t seem to get their attention, a callback or response.” Many of you

In a previous BrightTalk webinar, I surveyed the audience of sellers and asked, What is your biggest challenge in prospecting? I thought the results were extremely interesting—and they validated what I’m hearing from many businesses and sales pros about their challenges in new business development. Of the 120 live viewers,

In an interview by Paul Watts for his show Sales Reinvented Podcast he asked me, “What’s one thing you wish you knew earlier in your sales career?” My answer: “I wish I would have known to be more hardcore at pre-qualifying.” Yup. Pre-qualifying prospects is critical and when I think

I’m following up on last week’s post, The Power of Feedback with my promise to show you: The Biggest Mistakes We've Found When Coaching You On Sales Phone Calls We use call recording as a powerful way to help sellers improve their skills. This process is incredibly effective at assisting

I just came back from a phenomenal sales conference with my peer group, the Women Sales Pros. We have a public half-day conference and then two days of our private group learning and growing through shared expertise. It was my privilege to be tapped for a first-time session of “Cold

When your sales team closes a deal with a customer, it’s easy to think that’s the end of this buyer’s journey. The customer purchased what they wanted, and your sales team scored. Everybody wins, right? Time to move on to make a new customer! In reality, sales teams are missing

“They haven’t called me back.” It’s the most common response to “Where are we with prospect ABC?” This response, “They haven’t called me back,” lands with a thud at my feet like a bag of rocks when I hear it from a seller or business owner. I can feel the

Being an account manager, or a business owner, for that matter, is like being a master juggler—up in the air on any given day are dozens of details on a to-do list that spans customer calls, billing, paperwork, dozens of emails, and meetings, meetings, meetings. It’s hard to fit business

Here’s a new approach to the profession of sales. For years, we’ve seen the reputation of sellers slide into a negative, pushy obnoxious stereotype of the “don’t-take-no-always-be-closing” pushers portrayed in movies such as The Wolf of Wallstreet, The Boiler Room, and Glengarry Glen Ross. Personally, it pisses me off that