Blogs
How to Get Salespeople to Call Higher: Tips for Success
Over the years I’ve heard from many sales leaders who have been frustrated by efforts to get their salespeople to call wider and higher in their accounts. Although we all have a strong belief that there are opportunities outside the safe "green zone" of familiar contacts, many salespeople are particularly intimidated by trying to get appointments with executives. Read More...
Rejuvenating Your Team: Discretionary Energy Lost and Found
You know the feeling . . . Low enthusiasm, low energy, not a lot of motivation. You’re tired out and feeling oppressed by "making do with less" for way too long. Chances are your employees are feeling this way too, stretched too thin and tired of putting out extra energy to cover work that used to be done by employees who are now gone. Read More...
What Can We Do To Make Training Stick?
Originally published on TrainingMag.com / Whats-New. Training 2012
Conference & Expo speaker Carl Eidson answers the question, "What can we do to make training stick?" Read More...
To Differentiate, Leverage Your Customer’s View of Fair Value
I hear a lot of questions these days about how to differentiate in a weak but highly competitive market. The challenge affects clients from both ends of the spectrum—those selling premium high-end solutions with high costs, and those whose solutions are regarded as commodities. Read More...
Protect and Retain Your Strategic Accounts by Aligning Organisations
Nothing is quite as profitable and rewarding for a supplier as a strategic account. There is a myth embraced by far too many organizations that the health of this type of relationship is the province of the sales department. Let’s challenge our thinking on that. Read More...
Mobile Web vs. Mobile Apps
Many of our clients who start utilizing mobile learning are quickly confronted with the issue of whether to implement it as a mobile app or via mobile web. The decision can have broad implications for accessibility, cost, quality, and maintenance of a mobile learning strategy. Read More...
Virtual Leadership: Leading by Remote Control
We posted a blog in 2009 titled Leading by Remote Control in which we discussed the challenges of leading a remote team. Several readers commented that they found the title troublesome since it conjured up images of a leader controlling others or purposely pushing others’ buttons. These critiques had good merit. After all, engagement research tells us that employees don’t want to be controlled. And clinical psychology research tells us we all have buttons, yet none of us wants them to be pushed by others. With all of this criticism, does the Leading by Remote Control title have any legitimacy? Read More...
What reality TV tells us about Social Styles and building better relationships
As the saying goes, pop culture often imitates life. In today’s media-driven culture it seems you cannot have a reality show without a largely tell-assertive cast. Television executives are well aware that Expressives and Drivers in back-up mode equal good ratings. Read More...
Q: Hire salespeople and train them to be scientists or hire scientists and train to be salespeople?
A few days ago I posted this question on a LinkedIn discussion group focused on sales effectiveness in the chemical industry, a market segment that employs many scientists and technical experts as part of the sales force. While this discussion was focused on sales in the chemical industry, the same issues apply across many industries including laboratory equipment, high tech systems, aerospace, alternative energy, and more. Read More...
Let’s Stop Handling Objections!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Consider this scenario: The customer says, “The competition has the same thing you have, but the price is lower.” What does the sales rep do? Possibly point out differentiators and highlight the value to the customer. If that doesn’t work, free value-adds might be thrown out to entice the customer to buy. And what if the customer continues to maintain a hard price position? In my experience, the salesperson will often end up giving in to the customer’s demands, lowering the price or margin or both, sacrificing profitability to save the sale. Read More...
Calling on executives . . . don’t get “referred downward”
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Not long ago I was talking with a senior executive about the barriers confronting salespeople who want to meet with their customers' top leaders. I mentioned the common complaint that executives are hard to access and often refer salespeople right back down the line to their functional department heads. His response stuck in my mind: "You get referred to who you sound like." Read More...
Building Cultural Competency
Friday, October 08, 2010
A culturally diverse project team breaks down because team members can’t make a key decision that is core to the team’s mission. Some team members claim others are spending too much time off task and failing to share critical information. Other team members say the team leader is forcing decisions too quickly without allowing time for conversation, thought and consideration of alternatives. The executive sponsor is mystified. She wondered: “What’s the problem with this hand-picked team of high performers and how do I get them back on track?” Read More...
Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Successful Virtual Learning Facilitator?
Monday, August 02, 2010
Many of our clients tell us that they are interested in virtual learning and want to understand how to ensure the success of a virtual learning initiative. We discuss with them the various factors that affect the virtual learning environment—great design, the right technology, etc. But in recent conversations with some of our most successful facilitators, I was reminded of just how critical their role is in a virtual learning environment. Read More...
What Are Today’s Top Training Priorities? Insights from Industry Leaders
Monday, July 19, 2010
In the past few months, I have had the privilege of attending two of our industry’s leading professional conferences: American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) and the Society for Pharmaceutical and Biotech Trainers (SPBT). Read More...
Leader or Individual Contributor?
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
The recent change in Australia’s top leadership role (the replacement of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by his deputy Julia Gillard) resulted in a myriad of articles and comments about Mr. Rudd’s leadership style. Read More...
Coaching and Barbecue: Four steps to better coaching
Monday, June 14, 2010
Barbecue is a noun, not a verb. I learned this soon after I moved from New Jersey to Tennessee in 1982. The conversation went like this: Read More...
The Evolution of Virtual Learning
Monday, May 10, 2010
I conducted my first virtual learning session almost 15 years ago. I chuckle a little when I think back to how limited the technology and my experience were back then. About all you could do was show your slides, maybe conduct simple quick polls that you had to create on the fly, and maybe let the participants write on a whiteboard (why did they all use the upper left-hand corner?). Read More...
Virtual Learning: What’s the Real Scoop About Making It Both Virtual and Effective?
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Clients are asking a lot of questions about virtual learning these days, and it’s not surprising. There are so many ways that virtual learning makes sense. Instead of bringing people to a common location for training, why not bring the training to them? Instead of paying a big travel bill and disrupting work schedules, why not integrate the learning right into the work environment? Why isn’t everybody doing it more often? Read More...
What’s the Payoff for Investing in Your Sales Managers?
Monday, March 15, 2010
Recently we took a detailed look at how sales managers can impact the results of sales training. We expected to see an effect, but were surprised ourselves to see how much difference sales manager involvement makes. If managers are on board with the initiative and know how to coach, their involvement can increase the impact of training by as much as 24%. Read More...
Want to Hear “Yes” More Often From Your Prospects? Part 2: Target GOOD Prospects
Monday, March 08, 2010
Last month we talked about avoiding the numbers game in prospecting by consciously searching the internet and other sources for Strong Suspect companies that are likely to be “good for you.” This is the first part of finding a good prospect. Read More...
Four Key Changes Affecting Pharma Sales Success—Is Your Sales Team Ready? Or Not?
Monday, February 22, 2010
Many clients across the pharmaceutical industry are struggling these days to identify what it will take to be successful in a rapidly changing sales environment. Based on my observations of new customer expectations and regulatory guidelines, I’d suggest there are four critical success factors that should be considered when developing a successful sales strategy. Read More...
Want to Hear “Yes” More Often From Your Prospects? Part 1: Target the Right Prospects
Monday, February 01, 2010
Almost every salesperson I know hates prospecting. It’s understandable—they spend hours calling people who aren’t interested, and waste a lot of time and energy on too many “No’s” before finding the few who will say “Yes.” No wonder prospecting is viewed as a necessary evil—something that has to be done if you want to keep the pipeline full and develop new business. Read More...
Want Your Virtual Teams to Deliver Results? Make Sure They Have “People” Skills
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
With so many companies going global, merging, and reorganizing, more and more teams are made up of members who never meet face-to-face. An interesting question is how these virtual teams compare in performance to traditional co-located teams—and what is different and the same about their needs and requirements. Read More...
New Year’s Resolution: Get Managers Involved for Better Learning Results
Monday, January 04, 2010
As you start out another new year, possibly with a more limited budget than in the past, you might be thinking about how to make sure you get outstanding results out of this year’s initiatives. Read More...
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