sales

Don’t Pitch Your Solution Too Early

You’ve finally scored the big meeting with the dream prospect. They have expressed strong interest in your company and seem like a great fit for your services. As the Very Important Top Officer (wow, she’s actually in the meeting!) kicks … Read More

The Real 80/20 Rule for Sales

Most people are familiar with the Pareto Principle, that a small fraction of the work takes most of the time, a small fraction of customers contribute most of the profit, etc. This is commonly known as the “80/20 Rule”. Mark … Read More

Enterprise Sales and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

If you’re not familiar with The Prisoner’s Dilemma, it’s an interesting exercise at the heart of game theory. In the dilemma, 2 criminals are imprisoned separately and can’t communicate. The detectives don’t really have enough evidence to convict them on … Read More

Meetup 6/17: How to Keep Your Pipeline Moving

Gary Smyth from Sandler sales training will be our guest speaker this month, talking about a critical sales topic: How to Keep Your Pipeline Moving. If you spend a lot of time that seems like “sales activity”, but have trouble … Read More

Don’t Sell, Help

I always hated “sales”. The stereotypical sliminess. The used car salesman trying to push junk on someone at an information disadvantage. When I joined the software world, I found plenty of these people. But I also found that the most … Read More

What to do when a prospect wants a price upfront

Have you ever tried to buy something and found a sales rep would not give you a price or even an estimate before you jumped through a bunch of hoops? How pleasant was that? Yet, so many companies don’t want … Read More

5 Sales-Killing Mistakes from Our Attempt to Buy a Car

My wife’s car has been struggling along lately, and it’s finally reached the stage of life support that replacing it is no longer optional. So lastweekend, we went car shopping. We were trying to buy a car. You know who … Read More

3 Magic Words for B2B Sales

Courtesy of Seth Godin. Don’t blow it (the secret of b2b). If you cut your price for no reason, does that make prospect think you are more or less likely to blow it? If you talk about how awesome your … Read More

When You Should Make Assumptions in Sales

We’ve all heard how when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. In sales, we’re taught to never assume anything, to always ask open-ended questions to understand the customer’s real issues. This advice is usually great, … Read More

The Steve Jobs Secret to Sales

What do great sales reps know that the rest of your team doesn’t?  As this article on SellingBrew notes, great sales reps know when an opportunity isn’t a real opportunity. So they just say no to it and stop wasting … Read More