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SALES PERFORMANCE AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT INSIGHTS FROM AMY FRANKO

Video: Optimize Sales Skill Development for ROI

Video: Optimize Sales Skill Development for ROI

  Smart organizations understand the value of sales training and investing in their salespeople and sales leaders. When developing these skills, focusing on four key areas can ensure a robust and sustainable program. 1. Sustainability Objectives First, consider both short-term and long-term sustainability objectives. It's crucial to determine what will make the skill development program sustainable for the upcoming year and identify potential challenges and opportunities for year three and beyond. This forward-thinking approach ensures that the program remains relevant and effective over time. 2. Built-In Accountabilities Second, ensure that accountabilities are built into the program. This includes self-accountability for each professional or leader participating in the program, as well as organizational accountability to support these individuals. By doing so, you create a structure that supports...

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6 Capabilities for Highly-Effective Sales Leadership

6 Capabilities for Highly-Effective Sales Leadership

Your organization’s sales success starts at the top with strong sales leadership. What makes a good sales leader? John Maxwell has said, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” That’s especially true in sales, and especially now as we endure disruption and shifts in the economy. One stat I came across made the case for having strong sales leadership even more evident. HubSpot recently surveyed over 500 sales leaders and found 40% of them have missed revenue targets this year — a significant trend that can’t continue if their businesses are going to endure. What is the differentiator between those sales leaders that hit the mark… those that not only survive, but thrive in this volatile environment? As I work with sales leaders and other organizational executives across the country, some common themes emerge around the competencies and skills needed for modern sales leaders. In...

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Video: How to Optimize New Offerings for Sales Growth

Video: How to Optimize New Offerings for Sales Growth

If you have a new offering that you're putting out into the marketplace, these strategies will help you optimize the new offering to accelerate sales growth and also profit growth. Ensure that the sales team is very clear on the top line revenue targets, as well as the bottom line profit growth that your organization is looking to accomplish through the new offering. And then as they are analyzing their territory, identifying their top most loyal customers or their top most loyal channel partners so that you can then seed the product with those customers and partners. Create a seed program. By placing that product, that offering with those most loyal customers and partners, offering them additional incentives, offering them perhaps training and skill development, offering financial incentives, especially for your partners to sell that product through to your end user customers. Create a value sheet. This...

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Sales Strategy: Trusted Introductions and Maximize Sales Growth

Sales Strategy: Trusted Introductions and Maximize Sales Growth

The Value of Trusted Introductions When I consider what has helped me to create success in my career, within my sales consulting practice and within the various leadership roles I’ve had, the value of trusted introductions is near the top of the list. This has taken the form of introductions from current clients to decision-making peers in their network, sponsoring high-level events that will put me in the presence of my key decision makers, meeting with community leaders through my non-profit work, and key partnerships. I'm not alone. According to a Sagefrog report, referrals rank as the top source for quality leads with nearly two-thirds of B2B companies. My anecdotal research aligns. When I conducted a recent event with a firm that provides a premium private client wealth advisory service, I asked the group to visualize a service they themselves used often. Then I asked them to detail the steps they...

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Video: Leverage as a Sales Strategy

Video: Leverage as a Sales Strategy

Leverage is an incredibly powerful sales strategy. At its core, leverage means taking one idea, one strategy, or one sale and expanding its results significantly without much additional effort. Here’s how it works in practice: Expanding a Single Win: One client of mine secured a new customer and introduced a new offering to them. By leveraging this single win, they worked with the customer to roll out the offering across all of the customer's locations, multiplying their success from one sale into a broader impact. Event Strategy for Lead Generation: Another client utilized an event strategy to bring together decision-makers from a specific industry who face common challenges. By providing new ideas, innovative solutions, and valuable networking opportunities at these events, they created a robust lead generation (an possibly opportunity qualification) system from just a single event. Networking Within...

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The Woodard Report Podcast: Why Don’t Accountants Love Selling

The Woodard Report Podcast: Why Don’t Accountants Love Selling

Why don't accountants love selling? The Woodard Report™️ Podcast is a weekly conversation that's all about empowering business advisors to advance their practices and have a transformative impact on their clients. I joined host Heather Satterley to share business development tips so accountants can effectively attract and retain clients, ensuring the growth and sustainability of their firms. Some highlights: Accounting Added to STEM: Accounting has been recently added as a STEM discipline, emphasizing its evolving relationship with technology. (03:30-04:00) Selling Skills for Accountants: The need for accounting professionals to develop selling skills and step out of their comfort zones to be successful. (06:00-06:50) Five Critical Selling Skills: Five capabilities for effective selling: being an ambassador, agile, and entrepreneurial are highlighted. (07:00-08:20) Mindset Shift in Sales: The importance...

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Closing the Sale: Sales Closing Strategies That Work

Closing the Sale: Sales Closing Strategies That Work

Developing your skills with sales closing keeps opportunities from getting stuck in your sales pipeline, and it maximizes your sales results. Read this article for 9 sales closing strategies to incorporate throughout your sales process. ******* Sales closing is one of the most critical sales skills to master. We tend to build it up in our minds as extremely complex, intimidating, and even as something to avoid. Or we take the view that sales closing strategies need to be aggressive to be effective. I’ve also seen situations where we treat closing as a linear action; where it’s not built into the overall strategy. For example, it only becomes part of the conversation after a big presentation has taken place. 9 Strategies to Incorporate Sales Closing Throughout Your Sales Process Did you know that the average sales close rate is 29%? (HubSpot, 2024) Incorporating your sales strategies with closing keeps...

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Video: The Smart Sales Closing Technique You’ve Been Overlooking

Video: The Smart Sales Closing Technique You’ve Been Overlooking

Are your win rates not meeting your expectations? If so, it's time to rethink your approach to smart sales closing techniques. While it's common to focus solely on the end of the sales process, the real key to success lies at the beginning. In this video I explore the significance of refining your sales closing technique from the outset. Rather than waiting until the end to seal the deal, concentrate on creating the right opportunities, qualifying leads effectively, and having impactful conversations right from the start. Key Points: Create the right opportunities: Target the right prospects and identify opportunities within your current client base. Qualify leads effectively: Pursue high-quality opportunities that align with your business goals. Have impactful conversations: Engage with individuals who have the influence and decision-making capacity to buy your products. By mastering your sales closing...

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Sales Training: Elite Sellers And Leaders Blend Outside Perspective With Self-coaching

Sales Training: Elite Sellers And Leaders Blend Outside Perspective With Self-coaching

Does your sales training include self coaching? Elevate your sales game with effective self-coaching practices. Success demands more than skill—it requires continuous growth and outside perspective. Invest in yourself with these five self-coaching practices for sales leaders.  ******* I had an executive speaking coach who had a saying that always stuck with me. “You can’t read the label from the inside of the jar.” In other words, we get in our own heads too much. Or, we need to learn something specific to get to our next level and we can’t do it solely on our own. To reach a high level of success or significance with anything in work or in life requires outside perspective.   Consider elite athletes, sports teams, and leaders. They leverage outside perspective in a variety of forms for physical, mental, and emotional excellence. Think performance coaches, mentors, advisors, behavioral psychologists, and...

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Video: Who is Your Competition

Video: Who is Your Competition

  A question to think about: who is your competition... really? Is it just the firms you're used to running into, or is it something more? Consider these three different types of competition. 1. Marketplace Competition: The first type of competition is what we're most familiar with—marketplace competition. These are the organizations we encounter daily. They are the players we're used to competing against for market share, customers, and contracts. 2. Left-field Competition: The second type of competition is what we might call "left-field competition." These are the unexpected competitors, the organizations we don't run into as often. This could include startups that have emerged in recent years and are now taking a share of the market. It might even include companies from entirely different industries that are venturing into our arena and causing disruption. 3. Internal Competition: This isn't about...

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