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Monthly Archives: November 2010
Bad Sales Intelligence is Bad; Bad Metadata is Worse
A lot of companies struggle with bad data. They don’t have enough of it, or if they do it’s out of date, not well-organized or both. As Trish Bertuzzi with The Bridge Group stated last week in an excellent blog post,
“Bad data is probably handicapping your team by at least 25%.”
“Your email campaigns are bouncing, your LeadGen & Sales Reps are spending time looking for the right guy and all this is adding up to a lot of non-selling time.”
But even if you’re actively managing the data, do you have the right metadata analysis to make it useful?
In simple terms, metadata is “data about data” . . . .
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View Comments (2) Sales Leadership, Consistency, and the Myth of the “Arbiter of Success”
Heaven knows Seth Godin doesn’t need an ounce’s worth more publicity from anyone, least of all me. But one of his posts last week, “No knight, no shining armor,” struck a chord with me. He states, “Does your project depend
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Random Friday Thoughts
I’ll be the first to admit that on a literal, unbiased, hard-statistical mathematical-formula basis, sales is a numbers game. ((X number of calls x Y contact rate = Z prospects) x (A closing rate) = B # of closes)) x
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Defining Success
If your definition of success is high levels of sales and revenue, then you are naturally bound—even held hostage occasionally–by your customers’ demands. When success is defined largely by monetary gain, you don’t get to create your fans (read: customers),
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What to Look For in a Sales Dialer – One (Very Smart) Man’s Response
Inside sales entrepreneur Ken Krogue recently responded to a comment on his blog, asking what the key principles, or key concepts should be when looking for a dialer system to improve sales performance and productivity.
His response was short, but insightful, so with his permission I’m re-posting it here.
Question: Other than cost, what features are important while using a hosted dialer?
Ken’s Answer:
That’s an interesting question. On the surface the basic concept is the same for all of them–make more calls and make better use of agent time.
The differences really depend on . . . .
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Center for Women and Children in Crisis
Today I just wanted to take the time to inform readers about a non-profit organization that we recently started working with because they deserve some very positive publicity. The Center for Women and Children in Crisis administers facilities and programs
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Sales Performance – Mind Power and Dictating Outcomes
When that guy on the freeway nearly ran you into the median the other day (or maybe it was this morning)—were you angry or matter-of-fact about the situation?
Were you screaming obscenities, or was it a more pragmatic, “Hmm, it’s too bad that he’s driving dangerously; I really wonder why he’d put himself at risk like that”?
When it rains does it depress, or captivate you?
When a prospect doesn’t show up to an appointment, is it because they’re an idiot, or because they’re a business professional with exceptional demands on their time, who needs and deserves your best work, your best effort to help them?
The answer is, of course, it’s a choice. Your choice . . . .
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Bad Performance Management “Inconvenient Truths”
As the founder of top-level consultancy High-Yield Methods in Minneapolis, Dick Lee has worked as a sales and customer process guru for over three decades, doing VP- and C-level consulting with companies like Boeing, 3M, and Microsoft.
In an outstanding article entitled “Sales Lead Programs—Another Inconvenient Truth,” Dick tears apart bad lead management practices with a metaphorical sledgehammer, but in the process brings up a just-as-critical side effect: “We now have and have had innumerable clients dying to hire good, experienced salespeople, but the well has about run dry.”
Sales people get paid a lot of money, and perform “hard, essential work,” but in Dick’s mind are often treated as “Joy Riders. Parasites. Necessary Evils.” Sales is the “corporate whipping boy,” he states, because “anyone having that much fun deserves to be punished, eh?” If the well is running dry, it’s because professional sales reps are “treated so badly that most up-and-coming business professionals won’t put up with those levels of disrespect . . . . “
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