As B2B sales consultants we work hard helping customers improve sales performance. Life is good when we deliver results and get a referral to a new customer. It takes plenty of skill and expertise to land a new customer, and it takes plenty of skill and expertise to onboard a new customer successfully.

Stress around the holidays is one thing… stress 12 months a year as a B2B sales consultant is another. Here are five ways to minimize the stress often attached to helping people and organizations improve sales performance.

1. Pick your customers wisely!

Be selective when courting new business prospects. Simply put, some prospects will bring you plenty of stress after they sign on the dotted line. Here are some things to look out for and questions to ask during the getting to know a new customer process:

• Is the potential customer a grinder during the negotiation process?  Consultant beware: The grinding rarely stops with this type of customers.
• Does the prospect have the potential to spend like your best customers?
• How likely will the prospect be to make the types of changes you plan on recommending?  Perhaps conducting an evaluation of the potential customer's willingness to change before accepting a B2B training job should be on your to-do list.

I’ve been involved with B2B sales training for over 30 years—ten as a trainer and twenty as a trainee—so I speak from experience about what it takes to conduct a successful training workshop.

Sales consultant resources come from many different places. Books are a great source of information that stimulate my brain and help me develop new concepts which benefit customers and people in The Center for Sales Strategy’s partner program for sales trainers. 

A while ago I published a recommended reading list designed to serve as a resource for B2B sales training consultants—here are five more books worth reading!

Brand Face by Tonya Eberhart 

I recently watched an episode of The Profit. This show on CNBC features Marcus Lemonis—a successful entrepreneur and business builder—who attempts to help struggling businesses. The interesting thing about this show is the businesses featured on The Profit request Marcus’s help and guidance. More interesting is the fact many choose to ignore his advice even though he has a track record of success and their organizations are on the brink of collapse!

The Profit’s Approach

Lemonis evaluates each business on their performance in three critical areas: 

People

Product

Process

Here are some questions to consider about each if you would like to take The Profit's approach to improving performance: 

People:

• Do you use a statistically reliable assessment when hiring?

A while ago I featured 4 quotes not intended for B2B sales consultants but they do.  Here are four more you might enjoy:

Work hard. Don't expect sales performance improvement to come easy.

November was a great month for The Center for Sales Strategy's Partner Program blog, and in case you're just tuning in, below are our top posts from last month:

The B2B Sales Consultant's Passive Aggressive Guide to Flying

I understand a passive aggressive approach is not the best way to deal with people and resolve conflict; however, due to the short duration of most flights an indirect approach is often a better way to deal with some of these folks.

Many B2B Salespeople End Up in the Phone Call Hall of Shame: Avoid it!

A little preparation—tied to think, feel and do—goes a long way and increases the likelihood of setting an appointment. Try this process before picking up the phone—the people on the other end of the call will be glad you did! 

Five-Minute Communication Strategy for B2B Sales Training Firms

Ongoing communication with existing customers as well as other members of the consulting firm is often overlooked to the detriment of organizations.

Sellers often encounter hurdles—also known as objections—during the sales process. Here are some b2b sales training tips intended to help sellers turn a NO into a YES!

Selling is simple: Decision makers buy when a solution that solves a problem is delivered to them.

The challenge for most sellers is they have trouble getting to the decision maker… more challenging for some is they might not know the difference between a decision maker (DM) and decision influencer (DI). World-class B2B sales training teaches the difference between the two; unfortunately, most training and sales consultant resources are not world-class and overlook this subtle yet significant difference. 

How to Tell Them Apart

Decision Influencers (DI) include anyone who the decision maker allows to have a say or play a role in the decision making process. These folks can’t say YES, but they can deliver a NO that will cut a seller off at the knees... or they can deliver support that will boost the chances of success with the decision maker.