Sales Tips

As a field sales rep, you’re well experienced in the art of conversation. Sales is the act of bringing someone over to your side, and conversation is the best way to do that. A solid conversation creates action - it means a monthly quota met, a year-end bonus, and a happy customer. In a sense, every conversation is selling something; an opinion, suggestion, story, or idea. Salespeople require the skills to make this happen more than anyone. But outside of being charming and putting customers at ease, there are ways you can subtly sell more than you ever thought possible…

What type of business are you? The sales process for a B2B company is different than a consumer-facing business. Leads are gathered differently, there are more decision makers, and a distinct form of product knowledge is required for each. Understanding what type of business you are is the first step to becoming a better business. Your sales process defines how you sell your product to your customers. Your sales process will generally follow this format:   Lead Generation – Finding your customers, or helping them find you. This might be accomplished through cold calling, advertisements, inbound marketing, or other forms of lead…

I hypothesize that maps become fancier in response to the need people had for them. This seems simple enough, but a while ago, it was unclear to my simple mind what came first: the demand for a more encompassing map software or the map software itself? If we take a brief look at the history of maps, we can discover hundreds of years of mapmaking for the sake of convenience. People made maps for commerce, for astrology and agriculture, to map out where God was blowing his mighty winds (this one is my favorite actually). 

Motivation Keeping a sales team motivated is difficult. Maybe you've seen this before: a team that starts the month out strong, loses focus in the middle, and scrambles to hit quota at the end  That’s a common symptom of being disconnected from sales goals. Reps who aren’t connected to their goals lose motivation. “Lazy” reps are usually just bad with time management. They don’t have an active connection to their goals, or a visual way to understand them, so they lose focus more often. The Pokemon Go Effect Pokemon Go has taken over. Kids who haven’t left the couch…