I have had a few bewildering attempts to contact me recently that I feel deserve some comment.

If you want to get a response from a potential customer, behave as if you were meeting them in real life.  Be polite, be honest, be interested in me and my business.

Most cold approaches leave me cold! This is particularly true of companies that sell lead generation services. Given that this is their sole purpose, I really think that they should be doing a better job.

Are you a procrastinator or a prevaricator? Chances are you procrastinate but its really not a great thing, especially when it comes to improving sales performance. This is why.

I have had a series of messages on LinkedIn recently from one particular person.  I am not connected to them, I have not encouraged them, they have just sent them.  They are a master class in what not to do!

When you unexpectedly lose most of your work, it is really too late to start to try to make sales. It needs to be an activity that you are doing all of the time, regardless of how successful you are.

Following my last blog about AI and sales, I have been investigating AI further and have some further ideas. There is no doubt in my mind that AI is improving the work that I do and ensuring that I deliver a better service to my clients.  However, I don’t expect it to replace me any time soon!

I will admit to being somewhat sceptical about the value of AI in sales.  However, I recently attended a webinar that made me think a little differently about it. Here’s what I learnt.

The usual mistakes, poor presentation and strange decision making. It is all in these episodes of The Apprentice

Each year I like to watch The Apprentice on BBC1 and see if there is anything new to learn.  Based on the first few weeks, I am not sure that there is but it is still worth commenting on. However, this is what I saw in Weeks 4-6.

Each year I like to watch The Apprentice on BBC1 and see if there is anything new to learn.  Based on the first few weeks, I am not sure that there is but it is still worth commenting on.

I was asked recently as to what sales managers / CEO’s are really concerned about with regards to sales.  While the obvious answer was that there were not enough, that perhaps does not give the full picture. So, I asked lots of connections on LinkedIn who were CEO’s or sales manager to see what they thought. This is a summary of the responses.

Like many people, I used Coauthor to give me a summary of my LinkedIn contributions in 2024.  Coauthor essentially uses AI to summarise what I wrote over the course of the year and the changes made to my profile.  As ever, it is scarily good at providing a summary of my content and providing it in a form of words that I like.

Last week I ran a poll on LinkedIn, asking this question, Does Price Matter?  90% of those that responded agreed that it did.  I tend to disagree and this is why.

A few weeks ago, I conducted a survey of sales people, asking what the hardest part of their role was.  I received lots of different responses, which I attempted to categorise.  Lead generation and long sales cycles dominated and were discussed in more detail in Part One of this blog post.  This is part two of my analysis and starts with a surprising (at least to me) problem.

A few weeks ago, I conducted a survey of sales people, asking what the hardest part of their role was.  I received lots of different responses, which I attempted to categorise.  Lead generation and long sales cycles dominated but internal issues accounted for an alarming number of responses.  This is part one of a deeper review of the responses that I received.

In a recent survey of contacts, I asked the question, have sales got easier or harder over the time that you have been working in the role?  The majority believed that it has got harder.  While the basic numbers are interesting, it is also worth while reviewing the reasons that some people gave for why they believed it had got easier or harder.

Over the last few weeks, I have been surveying my contacts on LinkedIn to understand how they feel about sales and their role in it.  This is an initial analysis of the results.

Training is very important for many reasons.  However, training is only worth doing if it actually makes a difference.  If people get taught a new skill but they never use that skill, then the training has essentially been a waste of time and money.  It is therefore important to evaluate the effectiveness of the training to ensure that it is delivering what is expected.

How often do you review your sales process? Far less than you service your car I would imagine. Taking time to review your processes can identify areas where you might be able to improve and produce better outcomes for you and your customers.

The greatest sports people all have coaches to help them to improve their performance.  However, very few professional people employ a trainer or coach.  Why?