Marketing automation follows a small segment of the buying decision path
A term the larger marketing automation firms are trying to promote is dubbed ‘revenue performance management.’ What does this mean? Who’s performance are they hoping to monetize? It’s been fascinating...
View ArticleSellers can’t control the buyer’s decision journey
Sales folks like having control. You ‘understand the need’, ‘manage the relationship‘, ’follow the digital footprint’, send the ‘right’ data at the ‘right’ time. But what, exactly, can you be in...
View ArticleWhat are we paying our sales folks to do?
What criteria do you use to compensate your sales folks? Some combination of salary, commission, and year-end bonus, based on industry standard? And how do you know that that is the appropriate...
View ArticleWhere does the buy-cycle start?
The buy-cycle begins with one person with an idea – a recognition that things could be better. Whether from a discussion with a salesperson, idea from an article, or just the exasperation of an...
View ArticleCompensating our sales folks
A recent client is an international B2B company with a very non-optimal – but not unusual – way of compensating their sales folks. They split the sales team into an Inside Sales group that makes...
View ArticleFirst Contact: What to Do, Why, and How to Get Better Results
Depending on the selling approach you’re using, you are closing between .6% – 7% , regardless of size of solution or industry. These numbers are far lower than they need to be: so long as your primary...
View ArticleBehaviors aren’t rational
Science, sales, negotiating, and the prison system – not to mention neuromarketing, neurosciences, and decision making sciences – have a base-line belief that there is a ‘rational’ way to recognize...
View ArticleSelling doesn’t cause buying
When you think about your numbers (closing percentages, total calls, etc.), and consider the objections, the price issues, the delayed sales cycles, the excuses, and those who just, well, disappear,...
View ArticleWe can never understand a buyer’s buying environment
Sales people get confused when I suggest they can’t ’understand’ the buyer’s needs if they approach a sale with this outcome. Without everyone on board who will lend their voice to a possible solution,...
View ArticleWhy Aren’t Our Prospects Buying: the problem sales can’t solve
You’ve done your homework. You’ve found the right buyers – prospects with needs you can fulfill and can afford your solution. You’ve nurtured them, contacted them, met with them, scored them, pitched...
View ArticleBuying Decisions: The Implicit Vs. The Explicit
When I began talking about ‘helping buyers buy’, or ‘decision facilitation’ in 1988, people thought I was a bit eccentric, to say the least. “I help buyers buy too,” I used to hear. “I find out what...
View ArticleFighting for Failure: why modern sales practices are illogical
Logic would tell us that our modern – post Dale Carnegie – sales processes are failing. Given the facts, there is no logical reason to believe that a purchase will follow from our selling behaviors. We...
View ArticleDoes the sales model do what we need it to do?
Sales has been around since the Serpent convinced Eve to eat the apple. And, unfortunately, the goals have remained pretty much the same ever since. The sales model was designed for a different time in...
View ArticleHow do you buy? Steps in a buying decision
People are getting confused about the terms buying decision journey, buying path, buy-cycle, helping buyers buy, and buying decisions. Using a case study, let’s look at how a real buying decision...
View Article9 Sales Steps that Influence a Buying Decision
The steps of a buying decision differ from the steps of a sale. The sales model has no way to influence the private decisions and buy-in issues that buyers must address before they can buy. Buyers live...
View ArticleDeliver the Right Content at the Right Stage of the Buy-Path
Recently, I asked 15 marketing automation leaders to define Lead Scoring for me. Every one gave me a different answer! That tells me there is no industry standard, and qualification is totally...
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