It sometimes surprises people to learn what separates the top 4% of sales producers from the rest. Judgment is one of those surprising skills. In fact, it’s such a differentiator, that I consider judgment to be one of the superpowers of selling. Part of the 22nd Century Selling Skills In my presentation on 22nd Century Selling […]
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The concept of sales value creation has been getting a lot of attention again lately, in the sales blogosphere. It should. I don’t believe in metaphorical “silver bullets,” but the ability to create value when selling is as close as we may come to a silver bullet for our profession. We tend to forget that […]
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I know it’s important to continue to spread the word, but I’m almost tired of hearing about how buying behavior has changed. Yes, buyers are buying differently. Things have changed. The real question is… what are you DOING about it? We’ve all heard the stats, right? The Broken Record: Buying Behavior Has Changed Buyers are […]
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This post continues the previous discussions of enabling sales growth through customer focus. In my opinion, the journey toward sales growth starts and ends with our customers, so I’m not sure why our customers aren’t always the foundation of our sales processes, methodologies, and messaging, but I can testify that many companies still need improvement […]
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This post continues the previous discussion of enabling sales growth through customer focus. “The journey toward sales growth starts and ends with our customers.” – Mike Kunkle Customer Focus Framework for Sales Growth In part 1 of this series, I shared my Customer Focus Framework for Sales Growth. The five pillars of this framework include: […]
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The journey toward sales growth starts and ends with our customers. If we want to grow our companies, marketing and sales must align with an unwavering focus on our customers, building everything around them. The need for customer focus goes beyond marketing and sales, of course, to include implementation, execution, and service delivery, but this […]
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The Oversimplification of Sales Performance Work Yes, you read that right. I’m worried about some of the things I’m reading and trends I’m seeing in the world of sales performance improvement. Simple is good. Oversimplified is not. If you’ve been reading my work for a while, you may remember that I define performance levers as […]
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Ch-ch-ch-changes If you haven’t seen my social profile updates yet, change is afoot. Friday, March 7 was my final day at Richardson. Monday, March 10 is my first day at GE Capital. (Technically, I guess that means I’m unemployed this weekend. Hadn’t thought about that until this instant.) Past Can something be bittersweet and exciting […]
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I guess it’s somewhat funny that a simple, two-step addition to sales coaching has taken a 3-part blog series to communicate. Hopefully, it’s been a good journey for those who have come along for the ride. In Part 1, I laid out the overall framework of the two-step addition, and explained Addressing the Right Issues, […]
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In the first post in this series, I wrote that there are many good coaching models for having an open, engaging discussion with a rep, but not as many that focus on rigorous diagnosis and the application of the best solution, based on that diagnosis. Which, this time, leads us right into some details about […]
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