I was consulting with a client helping them create their strategic sales plan.  The concept and notion of 'the customer is always right' was brought up as a stop gap between sales and operations.

The management team stated that repeatedly the sales team seemed to drop this "bomb" on the entire enterprise causing internal strife and sub-optimizing profits.

The client sighted the typical mantra from Sales:

if we don't do it now someone else will the customers pay the bills don't blame me if we lose the business ok you tell the boss we can't do it etc., etc.  A book could be written on the ever present tactic sales professionals use and customer's consciously or unconsciously reinforce to get what they want.

The problem is played out in two lethal insidious ways.

Internal tension and mistrust is created between sales and the rest of the organization...

As a sales professional we are always looking for ways to be more efficient and save a little time; watch our most Microsoft CRM Tip - using Microsoft CRM Outlook Email - Click and Drag.

The following tip shows how to filter date ranges with a start and stop date range in CRM out of the box filtering tools.

I was golfing with a client in the typical business scramble and the twosome we were playing against was having a little trouble. They started to try  and change their respective swings in mid round. My client said something very profound, "if they didn't bring it with them they won't find it here!"

We ended up winning the round. I thought about how true my client's statement was, preparation is everthing in business, sales and life.

I had just finished reading Lou Holtz's book, Wins, Losses and Lessons, his autobiography and the theme of preparation wins the day was  repeatedly underscored.

Closing a sales deal starts with hard preparation and practice. In order for preparation and practice to be effective there needs to be a  consistent process to follow.

As a result just like Lou Holtz preparing for everyy game like it was for the "national championship", as sales professionals...

While working with a client at their sale's meeting a sales professional said he was getting frustrated because the prospect would not return his email and voice mails, and wondered if he should stop trying.

The sales professional met the prospect at a trade show and he had agreed to subsequent contacts.The account was appealing  and targeted by management  and was considered a very desirable client.

During the discussion by his fellow sales professionals ideas were offered as potential solutions:

Call the receptionist seeking help looking for a more effective way to contact the person. Stop by the prospects office and inquire about the best way to contact him, sighting your efforts to date. Send a registered letter to the person asking for a meeting to follow up on the trade show introduction. Send a registered letter with a memory stick...

Time and time again we walk into clients and hear moaning and groaning from end users that the system is too complex, or it takes up too much time, and I get frustrated and then just don't put my stuff into the system. As CRM solutions and technology have advanced many of these hurdles have and are being overcome.

Today's technology allows you to customized and change the out of the box CRM versions to work with your process flow; however, over the past 15 years we have seen many of the sales professionals 'winers'  that are typically of an older generation or those who have not been formally been trained on use of computers or have never had the accountability or responsibility to have to use one.

One of our very successful customers, who is in his upper 60's still jokes that cell phones are still not going to catch on. However, he has recognized that he must adapt his organization and give his sales team the tools they need in order to make quick decisions as well as allowing himself to see the macro...

In this video, Granison Shines -- Copywriter and Marketing Consultant, www.ShinesAndAssociates.com -- interviews CEO and Sales Expert Dave Neal about what he's going to discuss at the Always Be Marketing and Selling seminar coming up on August 19,2010.
 

Every morning I was getting up and busting open the cupboard and grabbing the coffee grounds, putting them in the coffee maker, and waited for my cup of Joe. Once upon a time I had spent the time to learn how to set the timer and got into the mode of prepping my coffee at night; therefore in the morning I would walk in the kitchen and it was all set to go and I was off on my day to sell.

The power had gone out sometime ago and I had not spent the time to reset the coffee maker timer. The pain of trial and error for even 5 minutes of trying to stop and relearn the timer thwarted my efficiency I had once gained.

The same rings true with a sales person's day to day use of their sales tracking and CRM systems. Many will not spend the time to learn the simple tools that could save them time and energy. Make a list of the repetitive things you do each week entering into your CRM system or lists, views, etc. that you need.  Then try to pick one a week that you can try to learn how to leverage technology...

I was on a sales call yesterday closing what I thought was a slam dunk Microsoft Dynamics CRM deal. One of our approaches is that we need a plan in place in order to provide professional services instead of just giving them the keys to the car with no guidance.

In our K4 Sales Training - Know Yourself we leverage Psycho-Geometrics where we quickly ascertain a prospects communication style. In this case we were presenting to a strong Triangle.  Triangles are typically "A Type" personalities that would take out a 2nd mortgage on their house to support an entrepreneurial endeavor. It might be difficult to push an idea with a Triangle as they have already made up their minds before you share all of the information.

In this case a CRM plan was a waste of time and money. Even though we know that you increase your ROI and chances for end user adoption with processes outlined and re-engineered to leverage the technology as the great enabler.

In this instance know we were communicating with a Triangle...

My wife and I live in Phoenix and enjoy hiking in the desert. A couple of weeks ago we were hiking the Superstition Mountains, the legendary location of the “Lost Dutchman’s “mine.

We met an old prospector right out of 1849 panning for gold oil painting. We struck up a conversation and I asked why he did it?  He said, he loved it, been doing it all his life and made a decent living at it.

After our hike, I thought what a great lesson for sales people today to recognize that “sales prospecting” is a way of life, it’s actually the first thing that happens before a sale is even made.

Find those streams of prospects, pan for nuggets they will lead you to the “mother lode”. Doing it consistently, using best practice methods and adding an element of passion and world class selling results will follow. Review your db, CRM tracking system, and make it standard policy...