The last few weeks have been pretty unique – I know I have never experienced anything like what is happening right now in my entire career. Sure, there were the downturns in 2000, 2008, 2011, but those were nothing like what 2020 is bringing us right now. That said, one thing is certain – just like previous downturns, this will end and we will recover.
The world has changed drastically over the past few weeks in many ways. While things are moving slower than usual, it’s a great time to reconnect with customers (virtually, of course), educate yourself, and sharpen the skills you’ll be able to use when the freeze starts to thaw.
“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” - Sheryl Sandberg
The ability to deliver the above is one, if not the, distinguishing characteristic of a great leader. Upon reading it, I began to think of what Sandberg’s definition of leadership meant for sales leaders.
During sales management training, I often tell sales managers they need to approach sales pipeline reviews with their sales reps like prosecutors in the courtroom. What exactly do I mean? To start, I’m not advocating that you look to “convict” your sales reps. Instead, I’m suggesting sales managers take an evidence-based approach to sales pipeline inspection. Doing so will remove the biases from conversations with sales reps, and make sales pipelines more accurate and data driven.
So, where do you find this evidence?
Sales Gauge, a leader in the sales training industry, today announced it has launched a new application for sales executives using Salesforce.com (SFDC). The app, which provides real-time insight into high value deals, is available at no charge on the SFDC AppExchange. In addition to full transparency into their sales pipelines, the new Sales Gauge High Value Trade Table app provides salespeople and managers a common language to discuss sales pipelines and forecasts.
Have you seen The Martian? In this film, Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, an astronaut who is left behind on Mars who must learn how to survive on a planet that is barren and he is utterly and completely alone. The thing that struck me most was how his character has to overcome so much adversity to survive that it seems like most of us would give up.
As salespeople, part of our job is to quickly learn exactly what a prospect’s role is within their organization and to ascertain their true motivations for engaging with us. By doing this, we are in a position of power that enables us to address their needs quickly and efficiently, ideally getting us to a strong sales opportunity.
Sales Gauge Launches Online Sales Training Platform
Premier sales training company launches Sales Gauge in the Cloud for Sales Professionals
BOSTON, MA – September 28, 2016. Leading sales training company, Sales Gauge, today announces the launch of its eLearning platform, Sales Gauge in the Cloud. With flexible options for individual sales professionals, small- to medium-sized sales teams, as well as enterprise sales organizations, the Sales Gauge online sales training program delivers an always on, cost-effective training solution.
Gravitocity Announces Strategic Partnership with Sales Gauge
Sales technology and sales training companies join forces to create complete sales prospecting solution
Burlingame, CA. – July xx, 2016: Gravitocity, Inc., a pioneer in sales outreach and prospecting technology, today announced a strategic partnership with Sales Gauge, a leading sales training and sales elearning company. Together, the two will enable salespeople to improve sales velocity by identifying and reaching new sources of senior-level prospects and closing business with them faster.
As sales professionals, we spend a lot of time focusing on the early and late stages of the pipeline. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it.
In the early stages of a deal, things are exciting and optimistic. As sales people, we are the most fervent of optimists, aren’t we? You reached out to a target prospect, managed to get to the CxO and now you have a meeting scheduled.
As professional salespeople, we are faced with 3 constants as we work our sales opportunities:
People, Time and Money
Sales Gauge frequently works with technology sales teams and we often see a propensity for the sales people to focus their discovery on the Critical Technical Issue (CTI), latching on to the technical solution that the client needs to solve.
