I conducted a Google search for the Top Sales Blogs and it showed 616,000 results.  I can work with that!  Not.  I started browsing page by page and I found approximately 50 different lists of top sales blogs on the first 6 pages.  My Blog was named on many of those lists but it got me wondering, why so many lists, why are so many different Blogs listed, what are the criteria, and which Blogs should you really be following for the best sales advice?

I chose to start with criteria required to be named on the lists. 

The most common criteria is personal choice as in "These are my favorite Sales Blogs!"  And that's OK as long as readers know they are your favorites and as such, won't necessarily have the best content.

Some of the lists use Blogs that are named on other lists and simply cull them down from a top 50 list to a top 25 list. 

Others use traffic as a criteria as in the Blogs that get the most visitors must be the best blogs.  Not really.  They're the Blogs that are most heavily promoted and get the most traffic.  Similarly, others use the number of Facebook or Twitter followers as their criteria for which are the best.

Some lists are pay to play where for a fee they'll include the Blog on their list.  The list may not have the best sales Blogs but give them credit - the authors paid for you to read their content!

Some lists are created by authors who have their own sales Blog (like I'm doing here) and they include their friends from the community (which I am not doing).

Some lists include Marketing Blogs.  Why not read a Marketing Blog when you're looking for sales advice? Most of the sales advice from Marketing Blogs is to stop selling and start marketing.

Some lists include Blogs on Sales Enablement.  Again. Nothing wrong with that but you'll usually get an adult dose of "technology is your answer" along with an extra-large serving of self-promotion.

Is there is an objective list that isn't pay for play, that doesn't list friends, that doesn't have off-topic content, that you can rely on for honest-to-goodness, entertaining, funny, engaging, thought-provoking articles that ask great questions and provide good, practical, real-world, usable advice? 

Not that I could find.

So I have assembled a list of Sales Blogs that fit that description. It is my opinion, but I really tried to be as objective and unbiased as I could.  These are the sales experts whose work I read!  Some are on the other lists I found while some are not.  Some have large followings and some do not.  Some are well known and some are not.  They are all heavily focused on sales and or sales leadership.  They are not ranked as that is way too much work, it is unfair to the sales experts, and I am way too efficient to waste time and effort on ranking.

I apologize to the sales experts who are friends and acquaintances whose Blogs are not named here.  I assure you it isn't personal but I worked hard to make sure this was not an all-inclusive list but truly a list of the best material.

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan - We'll get the shameless promotion over and done with early. My Blog, Understanding the Sales Force, with its 2,000 articles and heavy emphasis on data and generous use of stories and analogies is on my list.  Most of the articles are entertaining, not too long, and include data to back up my conclusions.

The Sales Blog by Anthony Iannarino -  The Sales Blog is not to be missed as Iannarino is one of the best at sharing useful insights.  Visit Anthony's Blog for the best ideas in both sales and leadership.

Partners in Excellence Blog by Dave Brock   I love Dave Brock's blog because his thinking reminds me of me!  He has the ability to take complex sales concepts and make them simple and easy to read. Dave is another veteran of the sales consulting space who has seen it all and done it all and his wisdom and sense of humor comes shining through. 

Mike Weinberg's Blog  Mike Weinberg is a great story-teller who whose practical advice includes making sure you pick up the phone and use it for prospecting.  There aren't many sales experts who still believe in the phone as a tool but Mike does and he helps salespeople use it effectively.   

Selling from the Heart by Larry Levine Larry Levine is unique in that his advice comes from the perspective of being authentic, caring and honest and you can't go wrong if you follow that advice.

A Sales Guy by Keenan   Keenan is another original but he is not for the faint of heart.  He's passionate about being great at selling and the passion comes through from his not so occasional use of the f-bomb.  If you can get past that - and you should - his writing is entertaining and very helpful.

Rain Group Blog The Rain Group's blog is about sales effectiveness and it relies heavily on data and statistics.  Right up my alley!  The advice is great and you should include their Blog on your reading list.

Sales Pro Insider by Nancy Bleeke    Nancy is another longtime veteran of the sales expert space who is an entertaining writer providing sound, practical advice along with occasional reviews of books and tools in the sales space.

Cerebral Selling by David Premer    I recently came across David's blog and was impressed with how well it fits a niche in sales that isn't written about or discussed very frequently.  If you're a thinking person, this is the sales blog to read.

The Sales Hunter by Mark Hunter    Another veteran of the sales expert space, Mark Hunter talks about hunting - a lot!  So if you're in a role that requires prospecting for new business, you will definitely want to check out The Sales Hunter Blog.

Keith Rosen  Keith Rosen writes almost exclusively about sales management and sales leadership so if you're in one of those two roles then you must become a regular reader of Keith's Blog.

Membrain by George Bronten  George sometimes reposts content from other sales experts and sometimes promotes Membrain, but that aside, his material is great and you should include his Blog in your regular reading.

Image copyright 1232RF

I'm a baseball guy and a die hard Boston Red Sox fan but I can't bear to watch them right now.  They are playing the worst baseball since I was 10 years old so that's going back 55 years!  It's not hard to understand why they are so bad because the data tells the story.  Their stats show that as of May 9, 2022 their bullpen has 9 blown saves.  Bullpens rarely blow 9 saves over a full season never mind over five weeks but if you look deeper, they wouldn't be in so many close games if their offense was producing.  Only three guys (JD Martinez, Xander Boegarts and Rafael Devers), are hitting!   Coaches will review game video and hitters will take extra batting practice to work on their mechanics and timing.

Sales teams go through periods like this too but sales leaders rarely seek out the data that would immediately point to the real problem.  They tend to hope things will improve and go from there. However, there are several levels of data to be reviewed so let's take a look.

As the article title suggests, there are five steps you must take to grow sales by 33% in 12 months.  You can't pick and choose as all five are required.

1. IDENTIFY BOTTLENECKS - A quality CRM application, like Membrain, will show your win rates, age in stage, conversion ratios, pipeline velocity, pipeline volume and pipeline quantity and more.  Dig into that data to determine year over year changes and identify where your bottlenecks have been and where they are today.  Be mindful that this is lagging data and are merely symptoms of the real problems!  (My personal favorite is the Baseline Selling edition of Membrain)

2. IDENTIFY THE REAL REASONS - An OMG Sales Team evaluation will explain why you have those bottlenecks and why your team gets the results it gets.  Note which of the 21 Sales Core Competencies are to blame - by team and individual - and more importantly, how much revenue is being left on the table and who is capable of upping their game.  For example, are deals getting stuck because salespeople aren't capable of reaching decision makers?  We know that salespeople who can begin with the decision maker are 341% more likely to close the business!  A training curriculum can be designed from these conclusions. Learn More.  Request Samples (Request Sample Sales Force Eval)

3. PROFESSIONAL OUTSIDE SALES TRAINING - Provide your sales team with appropriate training to close the competency gaps, improve skills, and achieve better execution.  This should not be a one or two-day event.  Change requires on-going, long-term training to change beliefs, approaches, strategies, tactics and develop skills!

4. DAILY COACHING - Sales managers must provide daily, one-on-one coaching to their salespeople to help them with their individual gaps and improve their Sales DNA.  Only 7% of all sales managers come equipped with effective coaching skills so they will need to be trained and coached in order for them to provide effective coaching.

5. ACCOUNTABILITY - Sales Leaders must hold sales managers accountable for coaching as sales managers hold their salespeople accountable for change.

Once you have the data and take action, there is absolutely no good reason why you can't bump sales by at least 25%!  That's right, AT LEAST 25%.  If everyone improves by just 10% you will grow sales by 33%!

• 10% more opportunities
• 10% higher average sale
• 10% greater win rate

That comes out to 33%!  Don't believe me?

Start with monthly goals of 20 opportunities, a 20% closing rate, and a $20,000 average sale. That translates to 4 sales for $80,000 or $960,000 annually.  10% more equates to:

• 22 opportunities
• 22% closing rate
• $22,000 average sale

That's 4.84 sales at $22,000 which totals $106,480 per month or $1,277,760. A 33% increase in revenue!

What are you waiting for?

We attended last night's Red Sox Game.  Unlike most games at Fenway Park, this contest was a pitcher's duel and the Red Sox held a fragile 1-0 lead over the Toronto Blue Jays heading into the top of the 9th inning.  The Red Sox closer, Matt Barnes came in and quickly struck-out the first two batters and that brought up the best hitter in the major leagues, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.  Barnes quickly got ahead in the count and was only one strike away from ending the game when Guerrero absolutely crushed a rolling curve ball, blasting it into the light towers in left field to tie the game. The mood in the park immediately changed from celebratory to morbid.  But the game wasn't over. In the bottom of the 9th inning, the first two hitters reached base for the Red Sox and then Raphael Devers smoked a long fly ball off the wall in left-center field to give the Red Sox a walk-off win.  From morbid back to celebratory and beyond to euphoric.  Such is the feeling of a walk-off win.

Regular readers know that right around this point in the article there should be a pivot to sales and I won't disappoint.  The walk-off win in baseball, the buzzer beater in basketball and the field goal with no time on the clock in football are all terrific metaphors for certain types of wins in sales.  Some deals are sure things from the get go and others stand no chance of going your way.  However, some huge opportunities are truly nail-biters and could go either way.  When those opportunities are finally decided and you win, they too are euphoric.

In today's article we'll use the walk-off win to show how a properly constructed sales process and scorecard will help you win the deals you are supposed to win, help you lose early on the deals you are guaranteed to lose, and give you a much better chance to win the nail biters that could go either way.

Coincidentally, today I will be working to improve a client's existing sales process. Their sales force evaluation results from Objective Management Group (OMG) pointed to three major reasons why they are losing business to their competition: 

1. They aren't creating urgency,
2. They are failing to reach decision makers
3. Both crucial milestones are nowhere to be seen in their existing formal sales process.

Most companies don't have a formal sales process, so in that regard they are very much ahead of the game but let me be clear.  Having a sales process does not mean that the process is any good, was well thought-out, properly staged, or sequenced so that it builds upon itself.  Having a process does not necessarily mean that the process is predictive or effective.  With or without a process, it's very likely that your salespeople don't follow the process and your sales managers aren't coaching to the process.  In those cases your process has been neutered!  You must have an optimized sales process which is formalized, staged, milestone-centric, customer focused and properly sequenced. That sales process must also have within it a properly built and tested scorecard that will accurately predict wins and losses.  And, sales leadership must be diligent about four things:

1. The process and related pipeline must be fully integrated into the CRM application
2. This isn't optional.  Every kick-ass sales team has this in place.
3. Every salesperson must follow it to the letter and keep it up-to-date in real time in CRM.
4. Every sales manager must coach to the sales process and conduct opportunity reviews in the context of sales process and pipeline.

An optimized sales process will all but guarantee that your salespeople don't miss anything when it comes to winning all the opportunities that should be won.  An optimized/integrated sales process will sound the alarm to all but guarantee that your resources are not wasted on an opportunity that you have little chance of winning.  And finally, to experience the euphoria of a walk-off win, you must rely on that optimized sales process integrated into your CRM application - and we love Membrain for this - to help you win the nail biters because nothing feels as good as a walk-off win.

Image is copyright by the Sentinal Enterprise.

During our first of its kind Independence Day weekend, I thought about a lot of things that loosely tied into sales effectiveness and while they could all be articles in their own right, I decided to write one article tying them all together.

I've been writing articles for my Blog for fifteen years - since 2006 - so not only was I an early adopter, I've written close to 2,000 articles.   The five topics I have written most about are:

1. 1. The 21 Sales Core Competencies and the data from evaluating 1,988,673 salespeople.  
   2. Sales Process and the importance of having one that is customized, customer-focused, milestone-centric, staged, and optimized 
   3. Consultative Selling and why that approach will net better results than any other approach 
   4. Sales Coaching and its impact on revenue 
   5. Baseball and it's ties, connections, similarities and place in sales 

Baseball?  There are lots of reasons for baseball being in the top 5 but in 2005, I wrote my best-selling book, Baseline Selling - How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. 

Baseline Selling uses baseball as a metaphor and includes a complete sales process and methodology rolled into one.  My son was two when I started writing that book. He became an outstanding baseball player and next month he leaves for college where he'll be continuing to play baseball at the next level.  During the past 15 years more than 100 of my articles had a baseball analogy somewhere in them and more than half of those had a mention of my son. In a way, my Blog chronicled his journey - both his successes and failures - from the first time he swung a Wiffle bat, through Little League, Travel Teams, High School, College Showcases and finally, college.

My Son's Baseball Journey is the same as any person's journey through a sales career - it involves constant improvement, practice, drills, role-playing, reinforcement, coaching, and at every level along the way, some level of proficiency and mastery.  While baseball players rise through the levels and a very small, but hugely talented group play beyond college, sales offers similar growth opportunities as salespeople rise from an assortment of sales roles with varying levels of difficulty up through sales management, sales leadership, and sometimes, for the very ambitious and talented, all the way to the C Suite. 

As my mind drifted I recalled my son's most memorable baseball moments.  This is my favorite memory ( video clip ) from last summer when he delivered the walk-off game-winning hit in the quarter-final game of a big tournament in Virginia.

That brought me to memorable salespeople.  While I have worked with and trained many salespeople who were quite memorable, I focused in on salespeople who were indispensable to my businesses.  After all, what would you rather be, a vendor/supplier, a resource, a partner, a trusted advisor, or totally freakin' indispensable?  I remembered 45 years ago when, at age 20, I opened the doors to my music business.  Yes, I was a musician but no, I didn't know enough about the other musical instruments and accessories I would be selling.  There were plenty of salespeople who wanted me to stock and sell their products, but there were two who taught me about which products there would be demand for, the distribution of products I would need to have on hand, the inventory levels that would be required, and even what I needed to know and ask so that I could be knowledgeable.  In the early years, they helped me profitably run, grow and finance my business.  They were indispensable salespeople. 

Moving back to baseball, my son actually played in four games this weekend.  Baseball is back!  Sort of.  Home plate umpires were calling balls and strikes from well behind the pitcher's mound.  They didn't have a supply of balls - new balls were thrown to the pitcher from a coach.  Umps and coaches wore masks for the traditional pre-game meeting at home plate, and parents were socially distanced and could not watch from behind the backstop.  But it was baseball and it gave us a sense of normalcy.  The game of summer adapted its rules to prevent (we hope) the virus from spreading.  That brings me to my next thoughts regarding the importance of adapting, being flexible and change.  

While baseball is still baseball, sales is still sales.  How we connect today has changed dramatically and will become the new standard. We must adapt, be flexible and change with the times. But once we have connected, we must still follow our customer-focused, milestone-centric sales process, take a consultative approach, sell value and thoroughly qualify.  That.Will.Not.Change.  You must still develop a relationship, build trust, find a compelling reason for them to do business with you, create urgency and differentiate yourself, recommend the ideal solutions and get them to buy from you.  That.Will.Not.Change.  However, the tools you have at your disposal have changed: 

• Prospects and customers can click a link to schedule time in your digital calendar which syncs across all your devices to save you a ton of time like youcanbook.me.
• The new crop of CRM applications with built-in playbooks to guide you through your sales process with an emphasis on opportunities and pipeline instead of contacts and companies like Membrain.
• Digital document signing to replace the part of the closing process where documents requiring signatures go to die like Docusign and Adobesign.
• Social Selling applications like LinkedIn, Twitter, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and Hubspot to help you get inbound leads and make connections through Blogging, posts and shares.
• Video Conferencing like Zoom.
• File Sharing applications like AWS, Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive and Egnyte.
• Content Sharing applications like OneMob.
• Collaboration tools like Evernote and Onenote
• Organizational tools like ToDo.
• Email like Outlook, Gmail and Spark.
• If/Then/Next tools like Zapier.

These tools, if used effectively and integrated efficiently, will make your life easier.  None of these tools will do the selling for you, but it will make the ancillary tasks around selling easier for you to get done.  For instance, I can send out my newsletter in MailChimp, link to my Blog, get an inbound lead, connect over LinkedIn, give an interested prospect the link to my calendar to schedule our first video call over Zoom, move to the next stage of the sales process in my CRM, import collateral from Dropbox and share over OneMob, note the appropriate follow up work in ToDo, close, and have an agreement signed with AdobeSign.  This is how the right tools support and even streamline our selling efforts.  But you still have to do the selling!

I've been in the sales development space since 1985.  I could have very easily become old and out of touch, but instead I have chosen to stay young and at the forefront of all things sales.  From my work at Objective Management Group (OMG), I preside over the largest collection of performance data about salespeople on the planet.  As of July 5, 2020, we have nearly 2 million rows of data, each with around 180 findings or 360 million data points!  You can see some of that data here.  

Finally, sales mastery takes more than a decade to develop - just like baseball.  You don't show up for your first day in sales, attend orientation, go to a sales training class and declare yourself a professional salesperson.  While product knowledge is crucial, that knowledge does not contribute to being an effective salesperson.  Forgetting what you know so that you can ask good questions helps a lot more than telling people what you know.  Baseball players show up for their first day and have to learn to catch and throw and hit off a tee.  They progress from there.

Embrace the journey and the tools, hop on the train, and dedicate yourself to developing the mastery required to be an elite salesperson.  The top 5% of all salespeople are exponentially more effective than the bottom half of all salespeople.  What do you want to be when you grow up?

Image Copyright Megan Ellis on Unsplash

Introduction

You can be more effective and more efficient selling in 2018, do every single thing I wrote about in this article, exactly as I wrote it, and without any difficulty, by making a conscious decision to follow this blueprint.  It's not hard. It's not scary.  It's not unusual.  It's not even thought-provoking.  It's simply a list of best practices that great salespeople (top 5%) do and that crappy (46%) salespeople either don't do consistently or don't do it at all.

Pre-Planning

The ideal sales day begins the previous evening.  Looking ahead to tomorrow, how many meetings do I have, which of those are sales related, how many items on the to-do list must be completed, how many proposals are due, and how many emails must I respond to before the day begins?  Based on all of that, how early do I need to set the alarm?  For me, most mornings it's for 5:30 AM.

CRM

Upon awakening, I like to begin the day inside CRM (we love Membrain) so that I can see all of my opportunities, the stage of the pipeline they are in, identify those I must move along, and who is waiting on me for something.

Calendar

Next, I need to identify my prospecting time for the day.  That's when I'll do the required work on those opportunities that need attention and schedule new meetings.  On most days, I have less than an hour of time for this so I need to be prepared to be ultra productive.  I can't afford to spend an hour attempting to reach potential new clients since even for me it will take 10-15 attempts to reach a CEO or Sales VP so it's crucial to actually connect with prospects during this time.  I begin with introductions, move to referrals, then to inbound leads from appropriately titled decision makers, and back-fill with LinkedIn connections and other inbound leads.  I only want to schedule future calls - not spend time talking with them today.  If you aren't fortunate enough to have a steady supply of introductions, referrals and inbound leads to call, you need a way to be more efficient than cold calling and I recommend that you use ConnectAndSell.  In an hour of calling they'll help you connect to an average of 7 prospects whereas attempting to reach prospects on your own might not yield 7 connections in an entire day.

Email

It's still early so this is the ideal time to respond to emails that I didn't get to yesterday, those that came in over night, and those where I need to be proactive.

Preparation

Finally, there are the scheduled sales calls.  For brand new opportunities, what do I need to know about them, their company, their industry and our common connections before we speak?  What is the desired outcome for each call?   What is the game plan to get there?

Sales Calls or Meetings

These days almost everything I do is by phone or video conference and that holds true for sales calls as well. If I want to achieve a predictable outcome then all I have to do is have a great conversation that faithfully follows our sales process, reaching the required milestones along the way.  One of the things that I love about Membrain is that the sales process, milestones, scorecards and playbooks for each milestone are on the screen during the call.  Companies that are in sales training, learning sales process and/or methodology, introducing playbooks, on boarding new salespeople, incorporating integrated CRM, or getting veteran salespeople to change the way they do things gain an additional benefit or 3 from these features.

What Can Go Wrong?

There is very little that can go wrong when you prepare like this.  Surely, some calls will cancel or reschedule, some prospects will be unqualified, some opportunities may be poor fits, and some prospects won't want to share answers to your questions.  You can't control any of that stuff but you can prepare for it.  Read this article to better understand how to use your unexpected free time.

Contrast

I receive a few incoming cold calls and schedule a few sales calls or meetings with salespeople calling on my companies each week and here's what I can tell you about them.  They.  All.  Suck.  No exceptions.  Here's why:

• The data behind why they suck
• How they suck.
• Thoughts on sucking.

When salespeople are scheduled to have an actual sales call with me all they want to do is pitch, present and demo.  Does anyone, other than those salespeople that we train, actually use a consultative approach to sell?

Summary

Armed with an effective approach, appropriate planning, effective sales process and methodology, supportive sales tools and good scores in all 21 Sales Core Competencies, you will succeed.

Image Copyright iStock Photos

Consider buying a car that had an insanely cheap price, with every option you could imagine, as well as options that you never thought you could use.  Nice!  But, you can't drive it until you hire an after market specialist to install instrumentation on the dashboard, a steering wheel, brakes, and gas pedal in the driver's area.  When you finally accept delivery and take it for a spin with your family, everyone hates it, nobody wants to drive with you, and you feel like it wasn't such a great price after all. You can't trade it in, and now you're stuck with it. Sounds impossible, doesn't it?  But for many companies, that is exactly how things are playing out for that purchased this popular application.

Salesforce.com.  

Consider this quote from a client:

"You were right, you know.  Six months ago, when you told us that we wouldn't be happy with the integration of the customized sales process into Salesforce.com, we didn't understand what you meant.  But now we do.  It's clunky, not really part of the interface, the customization cost us tens of thousands of dollars, and it doesn't work the way we need it to.  We are so sorry we didn't listen because that train has left the station."

Companies think they have to buy salesforce.com when, in reality, there are some really great alternatives.  Our favorite is Membrain.  It doesn't cost as much, doesn't require third-party integrators to get it to do what you want, and has perfectly good dashboards out of the box.  There's even a standard configuration for Baseline Selling.  [Speaking of Baseline Selling, I've received so many compliments on the great job of the voice over talent on the new audiobook!  You can order all versions (hardcover, paperback, Kindle, audio) of Baseline Selling here.]

Nobody should be stuck in a CRM application that salespeople don't want to use!  They will be inconsistent at best with regard to entering data, when they should actually be living in their CRM application.  Whether they are inconsistent or invisible when it comes time to enter and update opportunities, you won't have real time data on your dashboard and that makes the application useless to management.  At that point it's like owning a car that has a folding chair for a driver's seat and the car does not have a working speedometer, odometer or gasoline gauge. 

CRM is important.  Accurate forecasts are important.  Visibility into each and every opportunity is important.  Integration of the sales process that must be executed and the stage and milestone on which each opportunity sits is important.  Real time visibility is important.  If it's not working for you, cut your losses and move on.  Isn't that what you would do with an under performing salesperson?

Kitedesk featured me in a Sales Expert interview that you can read here.

I was the guest expert on a Rapid Learning Institute Webinar on the sales candidate interviewing mistakes you must avoid.  You can listen to that Webinar here.

I'll be hosting a 30-minute presentation of my own on October 25 at 11 AM Eastern.  I'll be talking about the 6 Hidden Weaknesses that impact sales revenue!  If you would like to listen in, you can register here.

Sales Process is a topic that I have chosen to write about around 25 times over the past 10 years. All 25 articles can all be found in my series on Sales Process.  Lately, we are finally beginning to see some improvements being made in this area.  For example, back in the early 90's, when Objective Management Group (OMG) first began measuring the existence of sales process, only 9% of all salespeople were following one with any degree of consistency and effectiveness.  It was amazing to me that for 20 years, this number failed to change!  But recent statistics are showing that 20-25% of companies and their salespeople are finally following and using a sales process.  Hooray!

With sales process finally getting the necessary attention, we should turn our attention to the three related issues that need to be addressed.  Which sales process should you select, and into which CRM application should it be integrated and how can it be customized?

To help answer the question of which sales process, it's important to understand that there aren't that many to begin with!  Names you might recognize as sales processes, like Challenger, SPIN and Sandler, are really methodologies - not processes.  For example, this short video explains one complete Sales Process - Baseline Selling - and compares it with Challenger, SPIN and Solution Selling.

It should be clear that you need a complete process and it should be customized for your business, what you sell, who you sell to, and the challenges that you face.  If you already have a process, or think you have a process, you can grade it for free using our complimentary sales process grader.

As for the CRM into which it should be integrated, where do I start?

Enterprise-size companies will need to choose Salesforce.com because it's the only platform that will do everything an enterprise-size company needs.

For everyone else, there are lots of choices, and Salesforce.com is probably not the best choice - unless you like spending a ton of money on customization, only to have a clunky interface that salespeople dislike.  And if your salespeople don't like it, they won't live in it, and if they don't live in it, the information on that dashboard, which you paid a fortune to customize, will be as useless as a typewriter.

It's difficult, and in some cases, impossible, to truly integrate sales process into CRM and expect its presence to be useful.  However, there is one CRM application which is perfect for businesses where the focus is sales process, the playbook, the pipeline and the dashboard.  Salespeople love it and that means they will live in it, data will be available in real time, and your dashboard will be predictive!  It doesn't need a whole lot of customization out of the box, and what customization it does require, won't require an integrator.  I think that if you check out the version of Membrain with Baseline Selling pre-integrated into it, you'll want to have it.

Some companies really get stuck when it comes to CRM, swayed by the crowd to move to Salesforce.com, but overwhelmed with the work required to roll out an instance of salesforce.com to their sales force.  Speaking of stuck, the folks over at #Getunstuck asked me to record a short video for them on how I get unstuck and you can check it out here.

Getting back to CRM, I've also written a dozen articles on CRM.  This article on scorecards illustrates the power of having a CRM application that can be easily customized and tweaked as you go along and gain more information.  Another article discusses the 16 problems with CRM.  Finally, this article provides an example of how you can use the information on a CRM dashboard to improve revenue.

Sales process, without a CRM application that can fully utilize it, is solving only half of the problem.  CRM, without a good sales process, yields the same net outcome.  And when both the process and the CRM app are not as good as they could be, you're essentially moving at the speed of water evaporating!  You're slowly moving backwards!

I just love it when cool gets cooler and I'm not talking about the winter weather in New England.  About a month ago, I wrote this article on Targeting and shared a generic model for scoring opportunities.  George Bronten and Henrik Oquist, CEO and COO of Membrain, took note and already developed the concept as a new feature for their world-class CRM application, Membrain.  You have to see how we integrated this new feature into the Baseline Selling version of Membrain.  In the image below, you can see that we added a scoreboard milestone at two stages of the sales process.

This allows us to purposefully rescore an opportunity as we learn more about it.  The next image has a little more of the scoring detail.

As you can see from our own instance of Membrain, we score the size, title, urgency, timeline and amount of competition for a particular opportunity.  This opportunity would have received a much higher score if there it was a smaller company, there was greater urgency and the timeline were this month instead of this quarter.  You might be questioning why the score would be higher if the company was smaller...A bigger company has 10 times the number of things that could delay or prevent a sale from closing and while all of those things could also occur with a mid-market or smaller business, they are far less likely at this stage in the sales cycle.  Don't believe me?  Then you don't have enough experience with enterprise size accounts!

Finally, in this listing we can rank opportunities by their scores (right-hand column).

Some CRM applications have the ability to rate the likelihood of closing based on assigned weights to various milestones or stages.  While that is better than when salespeople enter an arbitrary percentage, it's not nearly as good as when you have created specific criteria and values.  Neither man nor machine can skew those things!

In just a few days, this scoring system has had a tremendous impact on our company.  We are able to look at opportunities through a different and more accurate lens, allowing us to make better decisions about sales forecasts, resource allocations, and specific opportunities.

Thanks, Membrain!

Over the weekend, I was thinking about sales pipelines and inaccurate forecasts, how companies are always experiencing issues at the top of the funnel, and it inspired the following poetry. It won't win an award for imagination, creativity, rhyming or flow. I'll stick to my day job for this, I surely know.

The pipeline on the left with all the eggs in one basket
Scares me to death - a business, one hope, surely heading for a casket
The one on the right has a healthier look
With more opportunities for deals to be booked.

Once so simple, my pipeline for next quarter
Suspects, prospects, and the sales cycle was shorter
Names and numbers on cards was a must
In a shoe box or a file box, today they collect dust.

The prospects were familiar - referred or introduced
Not like today where leads are seduced
Tire kickers, assistants and all the wrong folks
Wanting ebooks and samples -- it's all a cruel joke.

Back then our forecasts were accurate and true
We reached all the ones who made decisions too
They paid on time, not 90 days late
And cared about partnerships since those were first rate.

We have CRM, email, and marketing tools
And our blogs and our websites make visitors drool
Graphics and videos are now all the rage 
And they clog up the pipeline in the very first stage.

I love all the tools for managing the pipe
Membrain is awesome and will keep prospects ripe
While you're sleeping, Hubspot helps prospects find you 
And their Workflows automate your messages too.

ConnectAndSell gets prospects to the phone for you
7 in an hour - almost too good to be true
Schedule new meetings from calls that are cold
It's today's way of calling - what's new is really old.

With all that has changed, one thing remains clear
You must still do the work or your pipeline goes bare
Get on the phone and talk with some prospects
Or quit sales today and move to customer service.

The End. No it isn't.

Selling - the art and science of getting people who didn't necessarily want what you have, to pay you a premium for it. Before you can sell anything, you must have some people to sell it to! Fill the pipeline today!

Would you like to contribute a verse to this pipeline poem? Give it a try - it can't be any worse than mine!

Copyright: 123RF Stock Photo

You’ve made your New Years resolutions to exercise, lay off the carbs, lose weight, be kind, leave the cell phone in another room at night, close the laptop by 7PM, and be an all-around better person. You may have even set your goals for 2015. But what can you do to kick-off the New Year so that 2015 is your best sales year ever? Here are my top 10 tips: 

1. Go All In on Your Goals and Write a Plan. If you know how much money you want to earn in 2015 and have a compelling reason to earn it, the next step is to figure out how. Subtract your salary as well as commissions on booked and/or residual business to determine the remaining required income. Based on your existing commission or bonus plan, how much new business must you close? How many new sales or accounts are required? What are the metrics to close one – in other words, how many proposals, demos, qualified opportunities, prospects and suspects does it take? Multiply that by the number of new sales or accounts required. You now have the activity required. Divide that by the number of selling days in the year. That gives you your daily metrics. Chapter 3 in my Baseline Selling Field Guide will step you through this entire process. Finally, where will that business come from? How much of that is already in your pipeline and how much of it must be found?
2. Live in Your CRM. Resolve to begin each day from inside your CRM and specifically, in your pipeline. I love the ready-to-use Baseline Selling version of Membrain for this purpose. From the exercise above, you should know how many opportunities are required for each of four stages of the pipeline. A pipeline with typical conversion ratios might have 12 Suspects, 6 Prospects, 3 Qualified and 2 Closable. Determine how many opportunities must be added to your pipeline, which opportunities need your attention to move forward, and which opportunities are ready to be closed. Use email as a tool to make your pipeline work; not the other way around.
3. Use the Phone. Use email to confirm dates, times and numbers and exchange agreed upon information. Do what old-school salespeople do and have ALL of your non face-to-face meetings over the phone. Follow my lead and conduct video conferences. Quickly create a page like this one that I built in Postwire for a professional, slick, and impressive way to share necessary documents, collateral and content instead of sending via email.
4. Improve Your Sales Capability. Skills are only a part of what can make you effective. The truth is that your Sales DNA is an even more critical part of a salesperson’s makeup than skills. Sales DNA is represented by strengths that support your ability to execute, or weaknesses that interfere. My SalesMind CD uses powerful self-hypnosis and affirmations to help you quickly overcome your weaknesses and strengthen your Sales DNA. Quickly improve your ability to ask great questions, push back, talk about money, become rejection-proof, overcome call-reluctance, control your thoughts and emotions, reprogram your self-limiting beliefs, become a better decision maker and much more.
5. Be Productive. Use powerful web applications or device-specific apps that sync across all of your devices so that you can get more done. I like Wunderlist for tasks, Google Calendar, Evernote for notes, Schedule Once (Membrain users have our own version of this) to make it easy for people to schedule a meeting with you, ToutApp for managing email lists and templates, Hubspot for my Blog and inbound analytics, Google Drive for documents and spreadsheets, Wistia for video, and Dropbox for file storage. Shufflr is great for sharing PowerPoint files with my team as well as quickly and easily building presentations from slides you’ve already used in other presentations. I use Zoom for HD video conferencing and AdobeConnect for my Webinar/Video Broadcast platform. It’s only with email that I use different applications on different devices. On my Mac desktop and laptop, I use Outlook for Mac. On my Android phone, I use MailDroid, and on my iPad, I use Acompli. So while the emails apps are all different, they still sync across all of my devices.
6. Become a Consultative Seller. I’ve written about this enough. You know what it means. It’s time. Be like Nike. Just do it.
7. Become a Value Seller. I’ve written a lot about this recently. Check out this series of value selling articles on my Blog.
8. Follow a Proven, Milestone-Centric Sales Process. Check out this series of articles on Sales Process from my Blog.
9. Look at that - You skipped over tip #1 – it’s so easy to skip that; I included it twice because it’s really the first thing you need to do in January!
10. Be More Productive. Use ConnectAndSell to reach more prospects by phone than you ever believed possible. Using their service, you can connect with 7-8 prospects per hour instead of per week.

There you have it.  Follow my 10 tips for getting 2015 off to a good start and this could be your best year ever!  I wish you Happy Holidays and a safe New Year.