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Account Planning for everyone (who uses Salesforce)
Regular readers will know that I am passionate about combining sales methodology with technology to make life easier for sales people. One of the areas where I have seen lots of wasted time has been in...
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8 Steps to Effective Sales Methodology Implementation
There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that a sales methodology can dramatically increase the sales effectiveness of your entire sales organization, significantly increasing your...
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20 Facts about Sales Performance
At The TAS Group, we just recently completed a global study of sales performance. The full report will probably be available by late April. If you want a copy email me ddaly (at) the tasgroup (dot)...
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Gartner: Cool Vendors in CRM Sales
Gartner just released their 2013 Cool Vendors in CRM Sales report and are selling it on their site for $495. You can get it here for free.According to Gartner, the 2013 Cool Vendors in CRM Sales offer...
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Sales Playbooks & CRMs - The Perfect Tango
I was speaking recently at a conference on Sales 2.0 tools. During the coffee break after my session I ended up in a conversation about sales enablement and sales playbooks. The conversation got...
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12 Elements of a Great Sales Playbook
The implementation of a sales playbook can be one of the most impactful initiatives for any sales organization. There are two reasons for this tremendous ROI. First, by following some simple...
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When is your Win Rate not your Win Rate?
It seems pretty simple at first, but calculating your Win Rate is not as straightforward as it might appear. In most cases sellers will think about their Win Rate as the number of wins as a percentage...
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The Role of Account Based Marketing in Account Planning
You may be aware that I recently published my latest book called Account Planning in Salesforce. (You can get a free extract here.) I was driven to write the book by the need for sales professionals...
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10 Things Every Sales Manager Should Know About Sales Performance (Infographic)
Thanks to our friends over at Work.com for helping us with this infographic. .The data in this infographic is based largely on the Dealmaker Index Global Sales Benchmark Study.
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What to do when "No Decision" is not in the customer's best interest
I have written before about the only two reasons that you lose a sale;You should not have been there (chasing this particular opportunity), orYou were outsold.I know I have fallen at both of those...
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Realtime (Honest) Feedback on your Sales Proposals?
As you may know I published my most recent book - Account Planning in Salesforce - earlier this year. I am always nervous when I am launching a book. I put a lot of myself into it and, even with a...
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Why Big Data for Sales fails
The Big Data hype worries me. A lot. Particularly as it pertains to sales analytics. When it comes to understanding the inflection points that should be the determinants of behavior change to improve...
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Why LinkedIn is losing its value to me
I don't know about you, but I am a little frustrated with LinkedIn lately. Every single day now I am getting multiple generic "I'd like to connect with you on LinkedIn" messages. Most of these are...
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10 Rules for Great Sales Coaching
Over the last number of years I have given a lot of thought to Sales Performance Management. I think that most experienced practitioners and observers recognize that the front-line sales manager is the...
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Surprise Your Customer
Flying from Ireland to San Francisco on the way to Dreamforce 2013, I was thinking about a session I was going to deliver. It was important. It was the first of 10 sessions we were involved in at...
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7 Principles for Successful Sales Leadership
One of the perks of my job is the interaction I am privileged to have with so many great sales leaders. During the beta phase for a new solution we just launched (to help sales managers understand the...
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Unpacking Sales Velocity
When Henry called me yesterday he asked a really interesting question. ”Why is it”, he said, “that everyone feels that the start of the year is the only time that they should look to build their...
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A little sales dashboard humor
.....You know it matters that the data is accurate if you want to understand how to improve your sales performance.Here's a Slideshare that shows you how to figure out how much you sell by focusing...
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7 Principles for Individual Sales Success
You should only read this if you believe that your level of success is largely up to you. Yes, it’s impacted and influenced by external events, but it’s not your sales manager, employer, customer,...
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Helping the Front-Line Sales Manager – It’s All about Rhythm
About once every six months I have the privilege of hosting some of our customers at our Customer Advisory Board meeting. At these meetings we always learn a lot about how Dealmaker is being used to...
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Battling the 57%: From Sex to Romance – The Ultimate Flank
Don't be put off by the title. This might not be what you expect. And sometimes that’s the point.There is a lot of nuance behind the 57% statistic - the CEB research that says buyers are 57% through...
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Make Every Sales Call Matter
So here’s the thing. There are really only two things that a salesperson controls; (1) who they call on, and (2) what they say when they get there. Ideally a seller is spending as much time preparing...
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Battling the 57% – Buyers Buy Different Things
There’s a statistic out there that buyers have, on average, progressed 57% through their buying process before they engage a salesperson. That ‘average’ piece seems to have been lost, and a commonly...
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Battling the 57% - Part2: Flanking to Win
I have written before about the statistic that is out there ‘buyers have progressed 57% through their buying process before they engage a salesperson’ – is in fact an average and that how you act...
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5 Abilities That Help to Predict Success
We are all born with a certain set of skill or abilities. As we grow and develop we get the opportunity to maximize the contribution we make to the world and to each other, in work and in our personal...
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Battling the 57% - Part 3: Getting Ahead of the Curve
Much has been written about the research that suggests that a buyer is 57% through their buying process before they engage with a vendor. I have written about this how I think the ‘57%’ is sometimes...
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Sales Metrics That Matter
The best sales professionals are constantly looking for help. Winners are honest in their self-assessment of the skills and competencies - or at least as honest as they can be.Only 61% of sales reps...
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13 Things Marketers Need To Know About Sales
There are few distinct viewpoints in business that are as polarized as those of marketing and sales professionals. Marketing is glamorous, sales less so. Sales are measurable, marketing less so. The...
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What Sales Managers Can Learn From The Music Business
There’s a Jackson Browne song called These Days which he wrote at the tender age of sixteen. One of the lines in the song goes, “Don’t confront me with my failures; I have not forgotten them.” A...
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5 Key Dreamforce Sessions and 3 Tips
There is a lot going on at Dreamforce. How do you choose which sessions to attend? This year there are many overlapping sessions, and conflicts between the keynotes and some fabulous breakout sessions....
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Will all Future Presidents be White Men? -The Predictive Analytics Problem
The answer to the question in the title is of course almost certainly No. But that’s not what the data said. If you look at the records from 1789, when George Washington’s presidential term began, to...
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12 Steps to Account Planning in 2015
It’s that time. As you prepare for 2015 you need to be thinking about how to maximize revenue from your existing customers. I’m sure you know acquired business from an existing customer is six times...
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A Sales Story for Our Time
When Matt finished the meeting, he was angry. His biggest customer just told him that she had placed a big order with a new supplier.“You know it’s not you. I like working with you Matt. How long are...
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Executing your 2015 Account Plan
One of my early observations of sales methodology was that it was very hard for sales professionals to execute on their Account Plan. There was lots of valuable strategy to use, but very little support...
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Salesforce Sales Leadership Forum: 3 Key Takeaways
Salesforce is the world’s largest cloud company, and many businesses around the world run their businesses on one, or a combination, of their solutions. So it would seem logical that Salesforce could...
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5 Sales Credibility Killers
...There was a time, long, long ago in a dim and distant past when, if you were in sales, the company you worked for and the product you sold were more important than how you personally sold. You may...
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A Sales Story for Our Time: Part 2
...This is not the way it’s meant to be. It’s far too complicated. Christy Dignam’s plaintiff voice crept out from the Bang and Olufsen surround sound system in Jack Swenson’s new 7 Series. Jack...
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(Sales) Interaction Design
I had an interesting discussion just the other day about the [putative] rise of social selling; increase in virtual, rather than physical, sales engagement; and the rush to redeploy field sales...
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What Customers Should You Pursue in 2015?
In business, there are really only two things that you control; who you call on, and what you say when you get there. If you put the effort into deciding what customers you call on, you are much likely...
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5 Steps to a Great Sales Insight
Much has been said about the need to bring insights to your customers. In today’s world of more informed buyers, it is clear that you need to do more than just communicate the capabilities of your...
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8 Steps to the Good Side
They say that a child laughs on average 300 times a day, and an adult just 5 times. If that is true, it is pretty sad. I get how life can catch up with us; but at the end of the day what you see in the...
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Do you know your Win Rate?
As you are developing your sales strategy for 2015 (you are right?) one of the critical elements in determining your sales velocity is your Win Rate. If you don't know how many opportunities to need...
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When Competitors Stalk You
I got an email just the other day from one of our webinar team. He wanted to highlight that six different people from one of our competitors had signed up for the next webinar – some using their own...
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The Insight Deficit and the dangers of big data
Sometimes out of the recesses of our minds a flicker of curiosity emerges. That is always a good thing. Here is a question. Is the pace of technological change coupled with the rapid explosion of data...
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Trust Matters: The Data Is In
I have written often about the importance of Trust In Business. I have always contended that without Trust it is rare that you will be successful. It has also been my experience that many others care...
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Big Questions for Sales Managers
Managing a sales team is hard. The role of the front-line line sales manager is the lynch-pin of most sales organizations, but the number of tasks that sales managers have to juggle makes it really...
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Why Sales Mobility Isn’t Just About Going Mobile
Back in 2012, I wrote about the proliferation of mobile devices and how this would impact on the way we work and sell. I was reminded about this when I was quoted in a recent article, The Top 10 Sales...
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Valuable Sales Calls Start With A Plan
When you pick up that phone to make a sales call, you are in control right?You’ve made the decision on when to call, and you’ve decided who it is you’re going to be calling.But are you going to control...
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Stay Connected. Be Smart. Sell Better.
In his keynote address at Dreamforce on Wednesday, Marc Benioff talked about topics ranging from the Internet of Things to groundbreaking approaches to cancer treatment.But, there was one consistent,...
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Winning Sales Performance Management.
The toughest job in sales belongs to the frontline sales manager – the vital final link between the company and the sales team’s interaction with the customer.For a company to succeed, the sales...
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