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Here is an all too familiar story: A sales organization needs to fill an open position for a frontline sales manager and...

My goal is to share best practices and proven, performance-enhancing tactics that Aberdeen’s five-year Sales Training re...

If there is one consistent complaint we hear from frontline sale managers, it is that they are always short on time. Thi...

If the sales training you provide to your sales team does not include guidance regarding social media, consider these fa...

In our last post we began to share insights from Brevet’s research into high-performing solutions for sales reps. For ye...

Because today's buyers are incredibly educated and savvy, it is crucial for sellers to control the sales conversation in...

Okay, I will admit it. I’m a lifelong Seattle Seahawks fan. I grew up watching the team, an experience that included a l...

I recently spoke with a key account manager at a major pharmaceutical company who shared with me the following anecdote....

More than a decade ago, companies shifted from the sale of single products to combinations of goods, services, and intel...

Louis Pasteur’s famous quote, “Chance favors the prepared mind,” was intended to guide a better scientific method, but i...

One of the most startling changes in selling over the past decade has been the rapid evolution in customers’ overall sop...

Names are curious things. On the one hand, they can be harmless, even meaningless. On the other hand, they can be profou...

After reading “Gettysburg: The Last Invasion,” by Guelzo, I learned the answer to one of American history’s great trivia...

As an analyst focusing on Sales Effectiveness, I am in frequent contact with senior B2B sales leaders. Too often I hear ...

Much of the advice on how to conduct effective sales negotiations counsels you to use a collaborative sales negotiation ...

One of the worst mistakes salespeople make, even highly experienced ones, is “feature dumping.” Here the sales professio...

This past Tuesday we sponsored a panel discussion on Leveraging Technology to Deliver Highly Effective Sales Training So...

What's more important: developing selling skills or following a sales process? This question has become much more amplif...

One of the most nerve wracking experiences for any sales professional is making sales presentations to buying committees...

Here is a troubling statistic: the average sales person stays with a company for about two years. Considering all of the...

With March Madness tipping off this week, I plan on getting my annual fix of college basketball. What I find striking ab...

“I need my sales team to be more proactive.” It’s a comment we hear frequently from sales leaders. The reason for it is ...

As a self-diagnosed “soccer dad,” I have had the opportunity to coach and watch hundreds of youth soccer games over the ...

Mom was right: “Honesty is the best policy.” This is true in all aspects of life, including building relationships with ...

What can a sales organization do to maximize its ROI from a sales training initiative? Start by focusing on the followin...

We are now in the homestretch of the 2012 political season, and the airwaves are flooded with political ads, speeches an...

According to the American Society of Training and Development, US-based companies spend approximately $20 billion a year...

Dating as far back as the Stone Age, the art of story telling is a highly effective form of communication. People are si...

For better or worse, research has indicated that we make decisions or judgments about a person in the first seven second...

Motivating sales people is an ongoing challenge for sales managers. Give them more money and a few months later they com...

Most sales people know they need to ask sales questions to uncover customer needs. However, many make this part of the s...

Sales reps, who typically tend to be pretty social by nature, will often try to build rapport with customers based on a ...

Let’s face it, most sales reps need to spend more time sales prospecting. In our experience sales reps avoid the sales p...

Does it seem like the NFL season plays out on TV or sports talk radio 365 days a year? I was watching ESPN and one NFL a...

Consistent sales coaching is a great way for sales managers to improve results. However one common challenge we see with...

How traditional selling is being transformed into “social selling,” and how LinkedIn has become a key social selling too...

In our current slow growth, budget constrained economy, sales teams have to do more with less. Quotas keep going up, whi...

Many managers get so immersed in tracking past performance that they neglect to focus on how they can improve the effect...

Given the rapid pace of technology and the efficiencies of working from a home office sales people are spending more tim...

Managing an underperforming sales team is always a challenge. As you think about the underlying causes, consider whether...

The stalled sale is one of the most frustrating experiences for a sales professional particularly when the sales person ...

Better selling produces better performance. It’s intuitive. And sales training is a proven method for improving the sell...

Every day we are inundated with blogs and articles describing how selling has changed. The primary driver of this change...

The lead qualification process is a critical but challenging selling skill for salespeople. Ask too few sales questions ...

In an ideal world, sales reps would only focus their efforts on “sales ready” opportunities. While this makes intuitive ...

Inside sales is becoming increasingly sophisticated and the preferred method of selling for many products and services t...

I attended a lecture (not sales related) where the speaker discussed the importance of packaging and the impact it has o...

As every training professional and most sales leaders know from experience, sales training as a standalone event is, at ...

Managing a sales team is one of the most important positions in a company. Great sales managers have a profound impact o...

One of the primary functions of sales managers is to always keep the sales team motivation high. Of course, the easy ans...