Sales Management Consulting

All companies want to grow organically through manageable, self-sustaining sales pipelines. Often it’s a lack of strategy that holds them back. In some cases that lack of strategy is obvious; companies aren’t willing to undergo the pain of change. Just like people, companies fear the unknown; downsizing staff is risky. So is hiring. Increasing expenditures […]

There’s a funny blind spot that comes up a lot in my work, as I help companies grow their sales pipelines: great sales people don’t always become great sales managers. A rapid-firing startup can see a phenomenal few quarters and promote their star sales professional into management – and not much happens. Sales plateau. The […]

Selling is getting harder. What we are effectively doing is selling change.  If you want a company to thrive long-term, that’s often what’s needed. I was reminded of this while consulting for a company that was undergoing a restructuring. It was long overdue, but also essential if they were going to stay in business. Their […]

In the last while, I’ve written about how customers can help sales reps to stop being their own worst enemy; how entrepreneurs who are afraid to sell can get over that hurdle; and now I’d like to have a little chat with the person at the center of these conversations: sales people, I’m talking to […]

Millennials are already on the radar of many firms looking to not only boost sales in the short term, but create customers for life. But selling to millennials is not simple. In the West at least, it’s the first generation that’s grown up in the Internet era. As one insightful “selling-to-Millennials” article in the Huffington […]

When your company is hurting for revenue, or looking to grow fast, what kind of sales coach do you need? As a sales coach in Vancouver, I hear (and answer) this question a fair bit. If you ever played sports of any kind in school, you might have a certain perception of what a sales […]

Kelly was one of those individuals most people think has the character of a born salesperson: a winning Hollywood-quality smile; an easygoing manner that never failed to put customers at ease; always a funny anecdote in his back pocket in meetings over lunch; a superb combination of intuition, persuasiveness and product knowledge. He seemed to […]

I started doing outsourced sales management consulting and related work here in Vancouver a while back, but I still like to keep up to date with news from back in South Africa (My accent? That’s it). One headline of business news stuck out for me: “Consultants to be vetted in future” (my italics added – […]

By the time a sales person calls a technical expert into a meeting to discuss implementation, they may have spent 6 to 16 months in qualifying the customer and getting past innumerable hurdles, from unhelpful gatekeepers to competitors trying to swoop in and steal your thunder before the contract gets signed. (Note: This article continues from What […]

“That new sales rep is raking it in very month!” says the technical pro at his two-monitor cubicle as he watches the rep pull his new sports car into his parking spot. “But wait – I’m there through the whole process. They get pricing and quotes from me. I answer the technical questions. I’m at […]