The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Only pregnant mosquitos bite people. They bite to suck the blood, which feeds their eggs. The female mosquito needs the additional nutrition found in blood because it provides the protein and iron necessary for her eggs to develop. 

As a salesperson, you need to keep the mindset of a pregnant mosquito. The “blood” you need is new customers with needs. Many b2b salespeople move into this mindset only when they need to—when they lose a big account or get behind budget. If you want to be the best, this month, next month, and every month, stay on the hunt for new blood customers—not occasionally, but all the time. You always need fresh blood.

This week's posts

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Mike Anderson told us we're all in positions to be disrupted. It's our choice whether we want to be on the side of the disruptors or the disrupted.

• Tuesday, Matt Sunshine revealed the solution to ending the struggle between internal sales and marketing departments, and his solution is elegant.

This week's posts were all about introspection. Look within to lead. From personal branding to finding talent, it was all about asking the right questions.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Christi Cool wrote about Russian ballerinas and asked if we were good talent detectives.

• On Tuesday, Mike Anderson asked how well we knew ourselves. Do we see in the mirror what other people see?
  

This week's posts went in a variety of directions. Although the posts varied wildly in topic (we had everything from lions to McDonald's to Pete Carrol!), they all related to looking out at the world around us to look inward. You'll see what I mean below.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Dana Bojcic wrote about how an injury turned her son into a caged lion, and warned managers not to cage the lions on their team. Are you caging your lions? Are you a lion that need

• On Tuesday, Mike Anderson told us the common connection between McDonald's, Mercedes, and you, which was a post about professional branding. Your brand is the thought that comes to mind when someone says your name.
  

Four-day weeks always seem to fly by. We took a long weekend, then came back on Tuesday, and hit the ground running! Now that we're officially in summer mode, we're reading our books outside on the patio and generally spending more time in the sun.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, many of the employees here at The Center for Sales Strategy weighed in on their favorite business books they've read in the last year. I don't know about you, but I put in my Amazon order!

• On Tuesday, Alina Diaz gave us five steps to developing a strong social media strategy. I like that she focused on individuals rather than companies -- there are great takeaways for everyone who reads that post.
  

This week was busy! We launched a new self-directed online course called Brand & Connect, which is a really powerful way to learn how to establish your profile online. People are searching for you as soon as they know your name -- you can guide them on what they find.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Brittany Ransonet asked us if our personal brand was keeping us from getting that first appointment. Then she offered to help whip our brands into shape. Thank goodness for that!

• On Tuesday, Steve Marx told us about the difference between product danglers and process danglers, and made a clear distinction as to which kind of dangler we should be.

There are only two kinds of prospects who agree to see you: the ones with lots of extra time on their hands and the ones who are tantalized by what you have to offer. The former are tough to find these days, and when you do you often discover that they don’t have any spare cash to go with their spare time. 

And so our task as salespeople is to tantalize the prospect enough that he or she will be motivated to carve out a block of time in their busy schedule. Salespeople who ask for only a sliver of time, instead of an ample block, set themselves up for failure by positioning themselves as unimportant and inexpensive and by leaving themselves too little time to launch a successful relationship. If you need plenty of time with the prospect, figure that the prospect will need plenty of tantalizing before agreeing to invest that time.

Most salespeople attempt to tantalize their prospects by dangling their product in front of them. Fewer tantalize their prospects by dangling their process. See which one is more like the approach you use…

The numbers are turning increasingly negative for salespeople: more people are competing with you to get a slot on the prospect’s calendar at the very moment when more available information has plenty of prospects convinced they don’t need to see salespeople at all. If you want to meet your goals in an environment as tough as that, your approach needs to be very together, very tight, very toned. But most salespeople have an approach that could only be described as weak—often because their personal brand is flabby.

Not to fear! I will be your personal brand’s trainer. One of my specialties is helping B2B sellers get into shape, and I can help you, too. (Note for those who dread working out: don’t worry, no sweat will be involved in this process, but you will get results if you put in the work.)

Your Personal Brand is More Important Than You Think

This week was a great one for us. I especially liked Matt's post about how to determine the ROI of your inbound marketing program. It can be hard to measure, especially if you can't easily connect your inbound efforts to your sales pipeline. The rest of the week had valuable information as well, both on our site, and around the web.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• Matt Sunshine told us what to watch for when he wrote 7 Ways to Know if Your Company Blog is Giving You A Return on Your Investment

• Christi Cool discussed the world record holder in Girl Scout Cookie sales, and reminded us that age isn't necessarily a factor in The 8 Talents Every Salesperson Needs to Succeed

I recently introduced my 14-year-old daughter to the movie City Slickers, the movie about a mid-life crisis plagued man, played by Billy Crystal, who was searching for purpose in his life. One of the characters in the movie, Curly, advised him to focus on “one thing” to give him purpose.

When I work with b2b salespeople, I often think of Curly’s advice. While it certainly takes a lot of focus and work to find the right clients to approach and the right valid business reason to secure an appointment, I often find that when the salesperson gets in front of the prospect they come away empty handed, not understanding the “one thing” his or her client needed. I coach these salespeople to go into a meeting with a desired outcome in mind.

Finding That "One Thing"

The “one thing” is to understand the prospect's or client’s key business challenge. I explain that the key business challenge is the foundation for developing a solution. Without it the client and salesperson are both guessing and it is nearly impossible to develop an impactful solution.

When I am dealing with my clients that sell marketing solutions for a living, I encourage them to uncover the following:

1. A need or opportunity
2. A goal or expectation
3. A timeline of when the goal or expectation will happen
4. Who the prospect or client is trying to reach