Lately, sales leaders have been asking me how to overcome social selling objections from EMEA leadership teams. There’s no question that there’s a tremendous growth opportunity for social selling, or modern digital prospecting in EMEA because of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – a relatively new European privacy law, which has dramatically restricted the … Continue reading “Overcoming social selling objections from your EMEA leadership team”
Times are changing for sales enablement, and it’s not good news. The sales enablement function is at a crossroads. Why? What we’re seeing is an out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new type mentality regarding sales enablement leaders. Unfortunately, sales enablement has been an afterthought for many organizations, and is treated as a second-class citizen inside the sales function. It … Continue reading “What skill-based capabilities are your sales enablement teams mastering in the 2020s?”
I’ve probably have heard the above statement 20 or 30 times per year for the last seven years. Whether we’re planning kickoffs, doing business reviews, or any kind of live, virtual, or on-demand training programs, sales leaders give me the same excuse time and time again, no matter what the industry: I DON’T WANT TO … Continue reading “Why are you so afraid to “pull your reps out of the field”?”
A couple of days ago I received an email from my business partner, Jill Rowley, who shared the following diagram with me to highlight some incredible research done by Gartner.
I’m noticing a big disruption in “the Force” – and it’s a disturbing trend. Maybe I’m getting older, or becoming more aware, or turning cynical – but the disruption in the Force that I’m seeing is that year by year, more and more sales professionals – whether they’re account executives, customer success leaders, or business … Continue reading “Prospecting: The Lost Art”
For years, the above has been a recurring question that I’ve received from sales executives, business owners, and sales leaders. They often misunderstand the word ‘social’ in ‘social selling’ by connecting social media with what their children do on Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram, instead of correlating ‘social’ as a mechanism to do two important things:
I was recently on a call with a prospective customer working on a global project scope, and they asked me a question that made me stop and think.
After seven years of working with 350-400 customers, it recently dawned on me that there’s a fundamental flaw in the sales training industry. For context, consultants like us typically go into market and provide sales leaders with basic training on how to be a coach of modern, digital sales skills. We then train the sellers … Continue reading “Train The Trainer: What Most Sales Enablement Strategies Are Missing”
At Sales For Life, we’re huge proponents of strategy over execution. Here’s why. The number one problem sellers have with pipeline creation or business development is that they and their managers believe that doubling, tripling, or 10x-ing down on activity levels is the only way to increase pipeline. (That being said, there are many organizations where … Continue reading “Digital Selling Framework: Strategy First, Execution Every Day”