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Articles tagged with: sales cycle

First Contact: What to Do, Why, and How to Get Better Results
Friday, 4 Nov, 2011
First 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 focus is on making a sale and you focus on needs assessment and solution choice (factors which are the buyer’s final considerations), and ignore the [...]

9 Sales Steps that Influence a Buying Decision
Monday, 31 Oct, 2011
9 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 in a ‘system’ that maintains their Identified Problem (or ‘pain’)  over time, creating work-arounds that become part of the system [...]

Compensating our sales folks
Thursday, 14 Jul, 2011
Compensating 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 appointments, and Corporate and Field Sales teams to close them. The structure, as well as the compensation, promotes failure: Inside Sales is paid per appointment (with a tendency to [...]

How do you buy? Steps in a buying decision
Wednesday, 13 Jul, 2011
How 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 happens.
When I began using the terms in the 80s my meaning described a change management process to lead buyers through their non-solution/non-need-related, behind-the-scenes internal and political issues that [...]

Where does the buy-cycle start?
Wednesday, 29 Jun, 2011
Where 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 every-day issue, one person starts the journey toward a purchase – and meanders, falters, through all of the change management issues that [...]

What are we paying our sales folks to do?
Wednesday, 22 Jun, 2011
What are we paying our sales folks to do?

What criteria do you use to compensate your sales…