Being Ruthless in Sales is not just BANT
I’m a Steve Blank fan. His book 4 Steps of the Epiphany is required reading for any entrepreneur starting a business. Steve blogs about a range of topics, and his best posts are about the … Read more
Sales
stress management, sales techniques, working with others, handling objections and problem solving
Ask For Forgiveness, not Permission
This post about forgiveness vs. permission truly resonates with me. Anybody doing Agile programming has already implemented many of these thoughts, or at least should have. But what about the rest of the organization? What … Read more
Chess as a Sales Strategy
I’m a long suffering NY Jets fan. The last time it felt like they were competitive, their coach at the time (Rex Ryan) mapped out their playoff schedule during the regular season, which included winning … Read more
Do You Accurately and Consistently Hit Your Close Dates?
When I was in college, I was struggling with Set Theory and some large, complicated proofs. I had always been good at math, so I found this struggle particularly frustrating. I was fortunate to find … Read more
Hit Singles
Are you a fan of baseball teams that know how to consistently hit singles, or are you the fan of home runs as the primary offensive strategy? There are many different approaches to winning deals … Read more
How to Create Repeatability Selling Open Source and SaaS
There is a fundamental shift in selling when your product is geared toward software developers. Most of my examples around repeatability focus on contacting prospects via phone. The phone call is still an important part … Read more
How to Create Repeatability While Prospecting
One of the hardest things to do in sales is prospect. Very few people enjoy doing it. How many people like being hung up on, ignored, and generally treated like a pariah? After years of … Read more
How to Create Repeatability With Closing
You’ve reached the happy day where your prospect tells you “I want to buy”. For the savvy enterprise software salesperson, you know that your closing journey has just begun. Many a deal has been lost … Read more
How to Create Repeatability With the Sales Campaign
Once you’ve started to engage with a prospect, the next step is moving your prospect through the sales campaign. These steps include understanding, liking and ultimately recommending your product for purchase. So, you have now … Read more
Prospecting With Repeatable Success
Prospecting for new customers is likely the hardest and most frustrating part of sales. In my experience, underestimating the time and effort to succeed in this one area is the greatest reason why new business … Read more
Hunter vs. Farmer – A Contrarian View
You’ve all seen it. A recruiter posts a job listing for a sales person and it starts off “We’re looking for a real “hunter” to go and find new business!” The concepts of “hunter” and … Read more
Mavericks and Journeymen
Both my parents were high school Math teachers – my Dad worked at the same school for all of his 33 years in teaching, and my Mom had two jobs – but only because she … Read more
Selling Ice to Eskimos
The sales process – particularly for Enterprise Software – is a challenging combination of art, science, personality, empathy and luck. It’s interesting to see all the dynamics around sales and the need or the lack … Read more
What Makes a Top Technology Sales Person?
Steve W. Martin did a study of over 1,000 technology sales reps and categorized what makes them successful. I found the findings consistent with my own anecdotal evidence and thoughts around enterprise sales. I started … Read more
