(888) 815-0802Sales leaders and sales managers are real confused by the whole notion of productivity. I hate to say this. But, unfortunately, it’s true. This is a problem in that it drives sales leaders to make the wrong decisions about how to improve productivity. Let’s get the basics out of the way. First, a sales person’s […]
A Simple Lesson Very early in my sales career I made a cold call on the CEO of a large homebuilder in my territory. I was selling computers for what was at the time one of the larger computer companies. I was freshly trained in sales and computers, a newly minted sales rep ready to […]
Everyone feels the constant push-pull in sales. You want to make the big deal happen. However, the buyer isn’t yours to control. You want to push. You have to be patient. Pushy? Patient? You gotta be both. Being pushy is not about asking for the order. Buyers expect that from you. Though it has no […]
Here’s something that can’t happen with virtual selling: your buyer can’t have Security throw you out of their building. Which is too bad. Those are great and painful learning experiences. I flushed a multi-million dollar opportunity with a prospect in the LA area because of a simple driving error. It was an account I’d been […]
3 min read - August 13, 2020
Methods Without Principles Are Meaningless
What are your sales principles? I love the following quote from Harrington Emerson, a renowned business theorist. “As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.” […]
Experience is a great teacher. There’s a limit, however, to how much it can teach. Ben Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers, wrote, “Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.” Ben Jonson, the English playwright and poet who was a contemporary of Shakespeare, also chimed in on the subject. He […]
What’s your sales truth? You can’t spend a minute on LinkedIn or some sales forum without encountering people claiming to be the sole possessors of previously unknown sales secrets, sales truths and sales hacks that have the power to transform your life. What these “truths” have in common is that they all claim to provide […]
“Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand.” Samuel Beckett. In school I was taught that ostriches buried their heads in the sand to avoid danger. It’s a great visual. But, it’s untrue. When ostriches encounter danger they can’t escape, they don’t bury their heads in […]
Sellers are learning to love metrics. You just have to be careful not to love them blindly. Let me give you an example. In any sales conversation with a buyer, such as a phone call. video call or in-person meeting, it is considered bad form if the salesperson monopolizes the conversation. Based on metrics about […]
Sellers Need To Know The “Why” Behind The “How” Sales reps and sales managers would benefit from more sales education and less sales training. There is a vital difference between sales training and sales education. Sales training is all about the “how.” Sales education is about the “why.” Sales education provides the context and framework […]
It’s a common refrain from salespeople. And it’s one I hear from people who are on a crusade to change what they feel are the unfairly held negative stereotypes of salespeople. It’s a common topic that people applying to be a guest on my podcast (Sales Enablement with Andy Paul) want to talk about. Which […]
2 min read - July 14, 2020
Do You Suffer from Confident Incompetence?
I know. It sounds like there should be a pill for that. Have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? It’s a well-known phenomenon named after the social psychologists who first documented it. (That would be Prof Dunning and Prof Kruger from Cornell.) The first part of the Dunning-Kruger effect, to put it in sales terms, […]
About the Author
Andy PaulRevenue.io
Bestselling author of Amp Up your Sales and Zero Time Selling, Andy Paul is #8 on LinkedIn’s list of the Top 50 Global Sales Experts to follow. With more than 170,000 followers, Andy is a highly sought-after speaker and sales sage who interviews the world’s foremost sales minds and extraordinarily interesting people to bring you strategies and insights that you can use to generate epic wins and massive value.