The sales model has taught you to uncover needs – to really, really understand needs – so  you recognize who is a good prospect and know the right way to pitch to that person. You finely hone your probing and questioning skills. You learn to hear a need from a mile off. You teach your staff to have great care […]

The sales process is woefully inadequate. It merely focuses on the last 10% of the buying decision: the solution and vendor choice.
To understand and influence the buyer’s buying decision process and all of the people, politics and relationships that buyers must manage internally to be ready to make a purchase, it’s necessary for sellers to learn a new language. Not […]

Selling Power predicts that by 2020 the number of salespeople will drop from 18M to 3M mostly due to online interactions and other sales support functions taking their place.
In the early 90s I wrote a column for TeleProfessional Magazine. My book Sales on the Line was doing well, and I was the voice of reason […]

When I recently heard that a prospect was re-organizing and moving the sales folks into geographic verticals, I was baffled. Across the board, through decades, using any sales model, selling any solution, the sales model closes 7%, plus or minus 2%. Regardless of where the sellers sat.
From what I gather, the thinking behind this is to ‘be nearer […]

Years ago, when the marketing automation field began publicizing that it would ‘follow the buy cycle’ and ‘place data exactly where it should be placed in the buyer’s decision path’, I knew that would be impossible, using the sales model. As a solution placement device, sales merely manages the last 10% of the buyer’s journey […]

This post was written by Eric Luhrs, author of BeDoSell and known for his model of GuruSelling. His contact details are at the end of this wonderful article.
You think you know what your problem is. But you don’t know what it is. And that is a problem!
Whenever I work with sales teams I will ask […]