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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Kurt Sima

Kurt Sima

Recent Posts by Kurt Sima:

How to Update Your Sales Process for 2022

How to Update Your Sales Process for 2022

In his book The Goal—author and business management guru Eli Goldratt—focuses on a concept called the theory of constraints.

This theory states organizations have constraints (or bottlenecks) that negatively impact performance. The process of identifying the most significant constraint and utilizing resources to eliminate the constraint is part of the process to improve performance.

Topics: sales process

Sales Development: 5 Ways to Grow Revenue Without Selling New Customers

5 Ways to Grow Revenue Without Selling New Customers

Most sales leaders talk too much about new business development.

The truth is: they would be better off yapping less about selling new customers and yapping more about growing existing customers.

Topics: sales performance sales process

Sales Leaders' Top Challenges— Setting Clear Expectations

Sales Leaders Top Challenges — Setting Clear Expectations

As a sales manager, here’s an easy concept to get your head around: sales performance improves when sales managers set clear expectations with each salesperson.

Think about it, when sellers know what to do—and managers establish performance tracking metrics and leading indicators to monitor progress—life becomes easier for all involved.

Simply put, when life is easier for a salesperson, they perform at a higher level.

Topics: sales leadership

How to Train a Sales Manager

How to Train a Sales Manager

Assuming a sales manager does need a training plan can be a costly mistake. Too often this element is overlooked, and revenue suffers. Creating a training plan that includes specific elements to be completed in the first 30-60 days on the job is a great way to avoid this.

Here are four areas that should be included in a sales manager training plan:

  • People
  • Process
  • Planning
  • Performance

Keep reading for information on each to add focus to the area of creating and using training for a manager.

Topics: IMPACT leadership development

Stop Wasting Time with the Wrong Prospects

Stop Wasting Time with the Wrong Prospects

The prospecting challenge is real.

Sellers face it every day when making the choice to go after prospects that appear to be low-hanging fruit or quick sales — or pursue prospects with greater spending potential that will take longer to close.

Topics: sales process prospecting

Stop Spending Time with Lousy Prospects: 3 Criteria to Help Qualify Your Prospects

don't waste time when sales prospectingMany sellers struggle to develop new customers. Often this has less to do with the seller’s ability to sell, and more to do with the seller’s ability to select quality prospects.

Some prospects are better than others, and qualifying them will help determine which of the prospects should be pursued and which prospects should not.

As you search for ideal prospects (future key accounts), use the following criteria to determine which current clients have the greatest potential for growth and deserve the most time and attention.

Topics: sales performance prospecting

Sales Managers: Start Focusing More on Top of the Funnel Prospects

Top of the Funnel Prospects

When it comes to the sales pipeline, a good rule of thumb is — having nothing in the top of your sales funnel today, means nothing to close in the future.

This means it is important to add prospects to a sales funnel, as well as ongoing engagement to move them through the funnel. Simply put,  just because a prospect enters the top of the sales funnel, it’s not guaranteed they’ll move to the middle of the funnel.

Topics: Lead Nurturing sales process sales pipeline

10 Things World Class Managers Do To Build a Healthy Sales Pipeline

Healthy Sales Pipeline

As a sales manager, image how much better your life would be if you had access to the following:

  • Better forecast accuracy
  • Improved sales performance

These elements are important, and delivering one or the other is not an option these days. Both are easy to achieve when you have a healthy sales pipeline.

Topics: sales performance sales pipeline pipeline management

What’s Your Account List Management Strategy?

account list management strategyToo many sales organizations don't have an Account List Management Strategy (ALMS) or they have one that provides little strategic value. In mature businesses, the lack of a priority-based ALMS is often tied to the following:

  • High levels of account attrition
  • Limited new business development
  • Marginal productivity and missed revenue goals

Topics: sales performance account list analytics account list management

A Better Way to Deal with Order Cancellations

how to handle order cancellations

The old saying “when it rains, it pours” seems to apply to order cancellations, and it seems like when cancellations occur, they occur in bunches. Here’s what many sellers do when they experience a bunch of order cancellations:

1. Have a negative reaction and argue with the client.

2. Panic and go after any account they can sell.

3. Look for ways to close a quick deal to make up for lost revenue—including dropping the price to close a deal.

4. Sell new prospects whatever they can sell without worrying about delivering results.

All items on this list ultimately lead to short term sales AND more cancellations in the future.

Topics: Needs Analysis Sales sales process