7 Reasons Your Sales Pipeline Sings Like an Old Meatloaf Song And Why Two Out Of Three Is Bad
by Cheryl Powers
There are enough sales lessons in this song to fill a chapter in a book. But for today, let’s focus on why your salespeople insist on keeping prospects in the pipeline who are never going to buy from you - - and what you can do to fix it.
Your sales pipeline should be the predictive determiner of future business but month after month and quarter after miserable quarter, CEOs and their sales leaders continue to play guessing games about how much business they can...
How to Avoid Hiring Bad Apples
by Cheryl Powers
Despite what I see in my news feed, my experience has shown me that most humans are decent, well-meaning, and kind. And when you agree to bring someone into your company as an employee, those are important qualities to screen for throughout your recruitment process. But let's be clear: it takes more than nice people to get the job done.
"The next thing you know, this CEO or business owner and their executive team is spending precious time and costly resources interviewing...
Game Changers: Reviving Stagnant Revenue Growth
by Cheryl Powers
This year our company's theme is Game Changers. We started the year by asking ourselves how we can help our clients in the most game-changing and innovative ways?
One of my favorite questions to answer for a CEO client is:
What are the three or four initiatives that, if executed in the next 90 days, would have the biggest impact on revenue performance over the next 12-18 months? Then we reveal the impact number -- the opportunity in dollars for executing on those initiatives...
Close More Sales With Emotional Intelligence
What is it beyond sales skills that exceptional salespeople and sales leaders possess that make them so successful? It's not just one thing but a set of factors that create a competency that make the difference between a good salesperson and and an elite sales superstar. You can think of it as the sales equivalent of Emotional Intelligence. The more of these factors your sales team has, the better they will be at keeping cool under pressure, forging meaningful connections with prospects and...
9 Critical Sales Performance Factors You Must Measure
by Cheryl Powers
How do you know for sure before you hire them that a salesperson or a sales leader can and will do what it takes to succeed? Their resume can't tell you. The headhunter doesn't want you to ask. The candidate will try to convince you in the interview and will likely be a more skillful interviewer than you are.
If you are serious about the success of your sales force and the success of your new hires, you simply can't wing it. You must know the specific sales skills, sales...
Are Girl Scouts Outselling Your Sales Force?
by Cheryl Powers
I remember the day when my daughter and her Girl Scout friends received their awards for cookie sales. These girls were on fire and as I look at the reasons they did so well, individually and as a team, I couldn’t help but notice that the factors contributing to their success are the very same factors that will make or break your sales force.
They were motivated and goal driven.
Beyond the satisfaction of knowing their world would be a better place with more Girl Scout...
Take Off The Blindfolds To Reveal Your Path To Double-Digit Revenue Growth
Most CEOs are well aware of the costs associated with generating new customers. Few, however, are able to accurately predict exactly when those potential customers will become actual customers. That’s a real problem for CEOs who want to significantly grow revenue and are faced with inaccurate, stagnant, and bloated pipelines that are less reliable than the local weather report.
There is a famous quote by John Wanamaker about half the money spent on advertising being wasted and not...
The Disconnect from Your Vision That Is Costing You Your Business
Warren Bennis, one of my teachers and one of the world's finest business scholars, said, "Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality." And in our lifetime we have witnessed great feats of leadership and we have benefitted greatly from it. As I sit in my Aeron chair, typing on LinkedIn's publishing platform on the Macbook Pro that sits on my desk, listening to Mozart's Requiem streaming from my iPhone, I am in awe of the vision held by the creators of...
Important Lessons From Gene Hackman About Winning More Sales
by Cheryl Powers
In the movie Hoosiers, coach Norman Dale has led his team to the regional finals and is delivering a pre-game motivational speech. He knows these guys are excited. He knows they are nervous. He knows they are preoccupied with both hopes of winning and fears of losing. And he wants them centered, focused, and present to the game they are about to play.
Isn’t that how it is for your sales management and every salesperson on your team? Every day they are responsible for...
Is Emotional Involvement Causing Your Salespeople to Lose Sales Opportunities?
We have all been there. The stakes are high, the pressure is on, and we have to perform at our best. And instead, we choke. Maybe you were playing golf. Maybe it was an important meeting with your bank or an investor. You blew it and now you're kicking yourself because you knew you could have done better. It's happening to your salespeople too. They're in the middle of a selling situation, and BAM! The prospect says something or does something that catches them off-guard and they panic or...