One KPI to Rule Them All
Yesterday I got some very pointed, and welcome, feedback from Stan Fischer, my new friend in, and very much from, New York. Stan said that I have utterly failed to make a big deal out of the most important outcome…
B2B: The Last Mile
As the great philosopher Yogi Berra may have said, prediction is difficult, especially if it’s about the future. But I’m in the mood to try something difficult today, so here goes. First, a prediction about how consumers will buy in…
Management by Serving Suggestion: How to Guarantee Sales Development Non-performance
"Management by Serving Suggestion" is a phrase that jumped off my tongue at the end of a visit to one of our customers, who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons. I was trying to capture what it was that bothered…
Coach by the Numbers, Part 4
To conclude this four-part blog series on coaching, here's a step-by-step guide for using the "Coach by the Numbers" process to get each representative on your sales development team up to an optimal level of cold-calling success. Get rigorous about…
Coach by the Numbers, Part 3
To summarize, in reverse order, the content in Part 1 and Part 2 of this four-part blog series: Sales development conversations are like prize fights: you will never get to use your late-round skills if you are knocked out in…
Coach by the Numbers, Part 2
Conversations, like golf swings, come in distinct parts. For the golf swing, we have the setup; backswing; transition; downswing; impact; and follow-through. For sales development conversations, we have opening and agreement to engage; communicating value; offering the meeting; agreeing to…
Coach by the Numbers, Part 1
The desire to coach sales reps has blossomed in the spring of 2016. At a recent American Association of Inside Sales Professionals conference in Denver, it seemed like every presentation — including mine — had something to do with coaching.…
Push a Button and It’s a Good Time to Sell
Chris Beall, ConnectAndSell's CEO and most frequent blog-writer, is on the road all week and unable to post a new blog today. Instead, we thought you might enjoy an excerpt from a recent ConnectAndSell blog of his, "Whatever Happened to…
Lemkin to SaaS Universe: Go Outbound or Go Home
SaaS-only VC Jason Lemkin recently wrote on the SaaStr blog that SaaS founders should listen to him and to the original core message in the award-winning, bestselling book Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross: “Invest in both inbound AND outbound sales…
On Dogs and Bones
It’s about time. By which I mean, sales is mostly about managing time. And time is just about the hardest thing to manage, right after your own emotions. Which brings me to the source of one of the biggest time-wasters…
