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SALES PERFORMANCE AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT INSIGHTS FROM AMY FRANKO
Strategic Selling: How to Make the Most of Buyer Preferences
Adapting to changing buyer preferences is key in strategic selling. Decision makers seek confidence in ambiguous environments, effective situation assessment, and collaboration. Misconceptions about sellerless experiences and non-direct methods need addressing. Prioritize creating value, building rapport, and guiding conversations. ******* Adapt Sales Strategy: Buyer Preferences Change, Approach Must Too. While much is written about the changing of buyer preferences in strategic selling, don’t let that distract you because the foundation of what they are looking for remains the same as it always has. What Does a Decision Maker Require from Today’s Sales Professional? Above all, decision makers want confidence in navigating their way forward in ambiguous environments. They also want confidence in making pivots on the path as needed. There are two questions we can always ask ourselves as we work with our...
Video: Sales Conversations: Pre-brief & Debrief
There are two pieces to a sales conversation that if you put this into your process, you will have much more effective and more momentum gathering conversations in the future. The first is the pre-brief. The pre brief is essentially thinking through the outcomes that you want to accomplish and mentally clearing the deck before you go into a conversation. So many of us are running from meeting to meeting that we don't necessarily have or take the time to simply clear our minds, get clear on the outcome of the conversation that we're about to walk into. If you take just a minute or two to do this, and if you already have an agenda planned, the power of those two elements together will make your conversation so much more effective. The second is the debrief. The debrief is the same activity, but simply on the end of the conversation. It is to take just a few minutes after the conversation, take down the...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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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