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SALES PERFORMANCE AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT INSIGHTS FROM AMY FRANKO
Podcast: Sales Training, Skill Building & Listening to Your Voice
Women Your Mother Warned You About™ is the podcast that makes business sexy again. Powered by Jeb Blount’s Sales Gravy and co-hosted by Gina Trimarco and Susanna Gray-Jones, the show is a blend of best business practices and “real life” hacks, filled with laughter, practical advice, random chatter and some serious moments. I joined Gina and Susanna to discuss the mindset of leaders and companies in the current economic climate. There are those that are holding back and shrinking, and there are those that are continuing to invest and grow and leveraging opportunities. I explained that sales training, sales strategy, and skill development programs that are championed by company executives are the ones that find the greatest success. We talk about the value of high-quality recruiting, and how losing a sales professional can mean a huge hit to your P&L in both hard and soft costs. It was a great...
Podcast: Bet on Yourself and You’ll Always Win
Did you know women make up only 29% of sales reps and just 26% of sales managers? Yet women in sales are proven to outperform their male colleagues, according to a study done by Xactly. Inspiring women in sales has become the passion of Lori Richardson, who created one of my favorite organizations: Women Sales Pros. Lori is also the host of the popular podcast, Conversations with Women In Sales. Every episode features a woman in sales who is doing incredible work, or an interview with a male ally, or conversation on a related topic. Guests share practical advice for advancing one's sales career. I was pleased to join Lori on a recent episode to share some of my favorite advice: “Bet On Yourself, and You’ll Always Win.” Some highlights from the episode include: [1:49] How I took an English degree and transformed it into a successful sales career [7:51] A conversation about women in sales [15:49] Amy’s top...
Self Leadership and Why Should Your Sales Training Program Embrace It?
One of the best ways to foster innovation and performance is through autonomy. Even if you don’t have a leadership title within your organization, you can still be a self-leader. Self-leadership describes how you lead your own life – setting your course, following it, and correcting as you go. Hone these five skills to elevate your impact as a self leader,
The Top Sales Books I’m Reading Now
I’ve been a huge reader my entire life. My parents encouraged a love of reading and during my summers growing up in Cleveland, you could find me in one of two places: the pool or the library. I was the one who actually read all of the suggested summer reading from my teachers. 😊 In honor of International Book Day, I'm sharing my list of top sales books I'm reading now. I had to painstakingly narrow down my list. These are four I’m actively studying and one “not-to miss” that will be released soon. Elite Sales Strategies, Anthony Iannarino: This one just hit my bookshelf, it’s brand new from Anthony. I’ve already started digging in and the concept of One-Down and One-Up is a gamechanger for sales professionals. The Modern Trusted Advisor, Nancy...
Sales Training Strategies to Develop Next-Gen Sales Managers
I'm always on the lookout for trends to address in my sales training programs. So in my latest LinkedIn poll, I asked my community to identify the greatest challenge facing sales managers right now. The top answers: sales managers are weighed down with too many non-leadership tasks (44%), with hiring challenges a close second (36%). Sales Growth Obstacles Facing Sales Managers Today Sales managers, and especially first line sales managers, have one of the most challenging roles in the sales organization. Most sales managers and sales leaders stay in role for less than two years. Let’s look at several reasons why and what this can mean to the organization overall: Sales...
Integrating Partnerships
How can you integrate partnerships into different levels of the sales process? That's what Adam Michalski and I discussed on the Partnered Podcast. Some topics we covered: My Journey to Sales & Partnerships How Sales People Should Approach Partnerships Centering the Customer Avoiding the Price Race to the Bottom Advancing Partnerships through Management Listen in below: For more information on enhancing your partnerships and relationships, read this blog. And catch Amy on more sales podcasts here.
Enabling Reps for the Modern Selling Landscape
Thanks to Sales Enablement PRO for hosting me on the Book Club podcast to share my thoughts on the skills that salespeople need to be successful today and advice for how enablement can help instill those. Some things we discussed: Why sales skills are evolving quickly. What skills rise above the rest and what role they play in the selling landscape. How enablement leaders can help salespeople keep pace with the rapid change and stay ahead of the curve. What the potential symptoms and repercussions are of disconnect and how enablement can help bridge that gap effectively. How your mindset can influence enablements’ ability to build effective relationships, particularly with stakeholders? Listen in on salesenablement.pro now. For more information on modern selling skills, pick up a copy of The Modern Seller. And catch me on more sales podcasts here.
Sales Strategies for Successfully Qualifying Your Opportunities
When I ask my sales consulting clients what is the most important aspect of earning new business, it’s fairly evenly split between prospecting and closing. The bookends of their sales process. It makes sense, because without prospecting you don’t have opportunities. Without closing you don’t have that new client relationship or the extension of an existing one. The Most Important Sales Strategy is Qualifying an Opportunity My argument is that the most important aspect of the sales process is qualifying the opportunity. When I'm conducting sales training, I'll assess clients on their sales competencies, looking at several opportunities that they consider to be near closing. Over 50% of the time, those opportunities are much further up in the funnel than initially thought. This is repeated across multiple sales professionals and teams, leading to unhealthy pipelines, missed forecasts, and missed sales...
Confessions of a Serial Seller
What does it take to be a serial, strategic, modern seller? In this episode of the Confessions of a Serial Seller podcast with the Tony Morris, I shared tips prospecting, relationship building, mindset, and more. Listen here. I encourage everyone to follow Tony and tune in to more episodes of Confessions of a Serial Seller! For more information on revving up your sales mindset, read this blog. And catch Amy on more sales podcasts here.
Sales Strategy: How to Influence Decision Makers
I was driving on a Saturday morning, and happened to catch a show on NPR about how someone earns the status of “expert.” It wasn’t with a business guru, but an anthropology researcher and author. And that short 15-minute segment changed my thought process on how we assess experts. What does this have to do with our success in sales strategy and how to influence decision makers? Turns out, quite a bit. Download eBook: Social Capital: Build Stronger Relationships and Grow Your Sales We live in a world that’s hyper-focused on likes, follows, shares, and online reviews to assess how well anything is received. Be it a product, a service, a story about your recent family vacation, or the vacation rental home you stayed in. Social proof in the form of likes, follows, and shares guides many a decision-making process and thus must affect our sales strategy. Those examples tap into two attributes that can influence...
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