I spoke to a great group of executives on Monday about social media and one of the participants wanted to know how you make a human connection in the vastness of the social network. As he noted, the one-to-one, “live” connection is still the most effective and meaningful. When you look at the sheer number [...]
Archive for September, 2009
Confessions Of A First Time Manager
Posted in Management, Sales, Teamwork, tagged Management, Teamwork on September 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Once upon a time there was a new sales manager who used the power of repetition to keep her sane, using a quiet, running mantra: “I love my job, I love my job…” My first days as a sales manager were tough. Well let’s be clear, the first year was tough. If you have read [...]
Performance Metrics: Are You Driving Results Or Are The Results Driving You Crazy?
Posted in Business, Performance Metrics, Sales, tagged Dashboards, Performance Metrics, Sales, Sales Effectiveness, Sales Metrics, Scorecards on September 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Years ago when I was just moving out of sales training and into a sales management role, we brought in a sales program geared to the major account team—a more sophisticated biz dev/account management process. In theory it was great and in practice, it should have been great. The domino effect of creating a discipline [...]
The Work Starts After The Sale Is Completed
Posted in Business, Customer Management, Sales, tagged Business, Customer Management, Sales, Sales Implementation on September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When I was a sales rep and I closed a big account, the euphoria generally lasted about a half hour. I’m talking about the BIG deals, the ones with long sales cycles, complex solutions and multiple layers of decision makers. The euphoria ends when the realization of the next steps sets in. For the industries [...]
Can You Make Tough Love Decisions and Salvage Your Customer Relationship?
Posted in Business, Customer Management, Sales, tagged Business, Customer Management, Firing Customers, Price Increases, Sales on September 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I had a discussion recently about the challenges of organizational disconnect when it comes to “tough love” actions with customers. Examples of this would be pricing increases, changes in service parameters or firing customers (for lack of a better phrase). In and of themselves, these are fundamental facts of business but there are implications to longer-term relationships [...]
