A few weeks ago, I conducted a survey of sales people, asking what the hardest part of their role was.  I received lots of different responses, which I attempted to categorise.  Lead generation and long sales cycles dominated but internal issues accounted for an alarming number of responses.  This is part one of a deeper review of the responses that I received.

In a recent survey of contacts, I asked the question, have sales got easier or harder over the time that you have been working in the role?  The majority believed that it has got harder.  While the basic numbers are interesting, it is also worth while reviewing the reasons that some people gave for why they believed it had got easier or harder.

Over the last few weeks, I have been surveying my contacts on LinkedIn to understand how they feel about sales and their role in it.  This is an initial analysis of the results.

Training is very important for many reasons.  However, training is only worth doing if it actually makes a difference.  If people get taught a new skill but they never use that skill, then the training has essentially been a waste of time and money.  It is therefore important to evaluate the effectiveness of the training to ensure that it is delivering what is expected.

How often do you review your sales process? Far less than you service your car I would imagine. Taking time to review your processes can identify areas where you might be able to improve and produce better outcomes for you and your customers.

The greatest sports people all have coaches to help them to improve their performance.  However, very few professional people employ a trainer or coach.  Why?

Whenever you contact a customer, you have to make it easy for them to accept your call.  You have to tell them why they should accept, what is in it for them, what will they get out of it?  They are not going to give up their time for free.  Just having something to sell is not a good enough reason.

Last week I had a cold call from a corporate hospitality supplier. It was possibly the worst cold call I have ever experienced. I am still staggered by how bad it was.

Here's what they said and how I would have approached the same call.

As your sales team grows, it is worth investing time in developing a consistent and logical sales process that ensures the team is consistent and only spends their time on relevant activities.  Even if you have been working together for some time, it is worth re-evaluating your process to see what improvements can be made. 

It is critically important to involve both ends of the value chain in any sale.  Only involving senior people, while tempting and possibly quicker, ignores the people who are most impacted by any change and potentially leads to failure.  Not involving senior people means not involving the person with the authority to buy so also potentially leads to failure.

Using a lead generation company to find new business for you may seem like a great idea but I suspect that it is not as great as it sounds.

This week I attended the Learning Technology Exhibition and Conference in London.  These are my thoughts from the day that I spent there.

Season 18 of The Apprentice started on BBC1 recently and as usual, I will be watching and laughing along.  While it may style itself as a business show, it is first and foremost entertainment.  That being said, there are still things that we can learn from it.

Season 18 of The Apprentice started on BBC1 recently and as usual, I will be watching and laughing along.  While it may style itself as a business show, it is first and foremost entertainment.  That being said, there are still things that we can learn from it. Here’s my review of the latest episodes.

Season 18 of The Apprentice started on BBC1 recently and as usual, I will be watching and laughing along.  While it may style itself as a business show, it is first and foremost entertainment.  That being said, there are still things that we can learn from it. Here’s my review of the latest episodes.

Season 18 of The Apprentice started on BBC1 last week and as usual, I will be watching and laughing along.  While it may style itself as a business show, it is first and foremost entertainment.  That being said, there are still things that we can learn from it. Here’s my review of each episode.

Yesterday I spent some time at the World of Learning Summit in London. While not desperately well attended or inspiring, there were definitely some nuggets of interest on the exhibition floor.

Increased profits are usually the objective for every company.  There are a number of ways that this can be achieved but the most simple and effective way is to close more deals using your existing sales team.  However, they need to improve their efficiency and so require regular training in order to achieve this.

A recent talk at an exhibition got me thinking about what you can learn in one day and why continuous learning is so important.

Over the last few weeks, I have ran a couple of polls about how often people do sales training or should do sales training.  The overwhelming response was that it should be done every year.  However, I know for a fact that not every organisation does this so I then investigated why.  These are the results.