This is March Madness
If you’re a sports fan, you already know that “March Madness” refers to the annual NCAA single-elimination college basketball tournament. The month of March also signifies the arrival of a new season, Major League Baseball’s spring training and the promise of warmer weather just around the corner. It’s worth noting people also have used March Madness to
Still struggling with forecasting sales for 2022?
Sales has traditionally been an intuition-driven profession: “What’s in your pipeline? What do you think is going to close?” But these days, that approach puts companies and organizations at a major competitive disadvantage. In this data-driven era, sales leaders need to make decisions in response to real-world market changes, up-to-date assessments of the marketplace, accurate
3 Questions for the New Year
Happy New Year. As we continue to reboot to whatever the “new normal” is, here’s hoping that this year will be one of health, happiness and prosperity for you and your company, or organization. As you focus on the days and weeks ahead, you might find yourself reflecting upon successes and/or failures over the past
7 strategies for closing out the year strong
It’s hard to believe the holidays are already here, and if you’re like many business owners, managers and sellers, you’re either looking back on the year with a high degree of satisfaction and accomplishment, or you might be asking, “Where did the year go?” How has your year been? Maybe you’re planning one last push
What buyers want now
There’s no question that, within the professional buyer/seller environment, preferences and practices have changed dramatically in the last 18 months. In many organizations—on both sides of the desk—the dynamic between buyer and seller has been altered in many obvious, and not so obvious, ways. In a newly released Sandler Research Center report, What Buyers Want
Building the right sales team
If you’re reading this article, chances are pretty good that you’re a business owner, general manager, company executive or sales manager. And, as we’re heading into the fourth quarter of the year, you might be thinking, “Do I have the right sales team on the bus? Maybe I need to reassess and, perhaps, even upgrade
From customer service to customer success
Question: When should you tell your “significant other” that you love them? Answer: Before someone else does. The same basic principle holds true for your clients and customers. Your best clients really are your competitor’s best prospects. That’s why every business owner, and sales professional, should include specific customer success behaviors in their account plan
Six effective ways to motivate your sales team during the ‘dog days’
Welcome to the dog days of summer—that time when the temperature and humidity are still unbearable, families are trying to squeeze in the last days of summer vacation before going back to school and (it seems) most of your customers, and prospects, are out of the office. As a manager, it can be hard to
Keeping sales momentum in quarter 3
Whether your company is large or small, whether you have experienced serious disruptions in your business or managed to avoid them, it’s likely that the last year-and-a-half has taken a lot out of you and your team. Either way, one of the big questions we are hearing from clients these days is this: We think
Three tips for retaining great salespeople this summer
Attracting, and keeping, good salespeople is at the top of every sales manager’s list of priorities. The better we are at inspiring, and holding on to, great salespeople, the happier, more engaged and the more successful they will be. Here are three things that you’ll want to keep in mind this summer to help your
Is the ‘new normal’ the permanent ‘normal?’
Will we eventually be able to return to the prepandemic ways of conducting business? That’s a question that has been on the minds of many professionals. The latest survey from the Sandler Research Center, “Leading from the Front During Challenging Times,” asked sales leaders around the world what kinds of changes they have encountered in
Building a high-performance sales team
Ask any sales leader whether they want to build a high-performing team and the immediate, and obvious, answer will be, “Yes.” But what are the specific best practices that support this goal? Here are three that we have observed in organizations that are thriving thus far in 2021. First, and foremost, create clarity about the