Casey Coffman

Polite, professional, courteous, knowledgeable, responsive sales staff are often good messengers but they aren't sales professionals.

A lot of veteran salespeople have never learned this, but successful sales depend less on the sales professionals' ability to talk rather than on their ability to listen.

That's common phrase I'm hearing from a growing number of agitated CRO’s.

Further discovery on these frustrations tends to lead to the following:

The salesperson who claims to “like” prospecting hasn’t ever done it. How can anyone “like” a process that produces such an arena for rejection? When salespeople say they like prospecting, what they might mean is this: “I don’t mind paying the price of prospecting to reach my objectives.”

A reminder to professional salespeople and professionals that have to expand their clients.

• Have you ever noticed that some people jump to quick conclusions, don’t like to get bogged down with details, and like to take the 30,000-foot view of issues?
• Or that others prioritize making and keeping friends?
• Or that still others just don’t like change and conflict, and want to avoid making decisions?
• Have you ever noticed that there are some people who want all the details before they act? That they may even suffer from “paralysis of analysis”?

Have you ever granted a price concession – or made any other compromise to a buyer – because you didn’t want the buyer to think less of you or disapprove of you?

Here’s an interesting exercise: On a piece of paper (or in a word processing document) draw a vertical line down the center of the page. At the top left side, write your company’s name. Across the page, on the top right side, write the name of your most important competitor. Down the left side of the page, write the numbers 1, 2 and 3. Do the same thing on the right side of the page.

You may not realize it, but your team’s CRM can help you to overcome the “winging it” problem, standardize your team’s sales process, speed up sales cycles, improve close ratios, and increase revenue.

“Just put me in coach, I’ll create miracles.”  That enthusiasm is great and can indeed have a strong impact on a sales team, but there are some common mistakes the new sales manager make: