# Build A Sales Machine

> Create Predictable Revenue


## Posts

- [My New Book: “Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into A Sales Machine With The $100 Million Best Practices Of Salesforce.com”](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2011/09/new-book-predictable-revenue/): [Update: Predictable Revenue has been #1 Bestselling Telemarketing book on Amazon.com for more than a year!] After years of baby steps, Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into A Sales Machine With The $100 Million Best Practices Of Salesforce.com is out! [youtube width=”425″ height=”284″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjpek3XaOP0[/youtube] You can get it for less than $10 in paperback, or just a $1 on Kindle, on Amazon. Why I Wrote This Book After spending a few years at Salesforce.com learning …I realized I had to share this “how to build a sales machine” expertise with others. I’d met so many CEOs, sales executives and salespeople who spend most […]
- [Marketo's Definitive Guide to Sales Lead Qualification and Sales Development](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2011/03/marketos-definitive-guide-to-sales-lead-qualification-and-sales-development/): Here’s the beginning of the post by Jon Miller, with a link at the bottom (and here) to the full article 🙂 One of the best pieces of organizational wisdom I’ve ever received is to pay the most attention to “batons” that cross functions. Wherever two or more departments share ownership and responsibility, conditions are ripest for problems. This is especially true in the handoff between marketing and sales.  We’ve written a lot about this topic: even though Sales is from Mars and Marketing is from Venus, companies that leverage the virtuous cycle and practice the three truths behind sales and […]
- [Are Your Challenges Different This Year Than Last Year?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2010/04/challenges-different-this-year/): As a CEO or executive, how often do you talk directly with employees on the front line for unfiltered feedback?  Every time information is passed through someone or a level in a company, it’s filtered and changes. What do your salespeople (not sales managers) tell you is their #1 bottleneck in growing their numbers? According to the front line customer service employees, what are the top customer complaints? Or from the employees that handle current customers, why do they cancel? Of course you need to listen to your executives and managers, but don’t ignore the customers and line employees!! These reasons […]
- [The 7 Fatal Mistakes CEOs and VP Sales Make](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/12/the-7-fatal-mistakes-ceos-and-vp-sales-make/): While I’m on the “Fatal Mistakes” topic, here is a presentation about seven of the main ones that executive teams make time and time again. Some of the text is small to read in this small blog-sized format. To make it easier: There is “Full Screen” button in the top right of the viewer, or You can download the presentation. Please comment below on which one is your favorite – or if you think I’m wrong! 7 Fatal Sales Mistakes CEOs and VP Sales Make –
- [The Fatal Mistake Boards & VP Sales Will Make In 2010 Planning](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/11/the-fatal-mistake-boards-vp-sales-will-make-in-2010-planning/): Note: I first published this post exactly one year ago. Unfortunately it bears reposting again and again!. I have a feeling this same post will be relevant for another few years until the conventional wisdom evolves. If you’re looking for help with growing sales, and especially in creating an amazing inside sales lead generation function, I have an overview of my sales consulting practice at www.PebbleStorm.com/cpr. ———–For companies selling products worth less than $100,000-$250,000, the old school strategy of hiring more feet-on-the-street to drive revenue growth is failing more often. Or just fails. Let’s take companies in fast-growth periods who are […]
- [Marketo's Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/08/marketos-definitive-guide-to-lead-nurturing/): (Want expert help – based off of salesforce.com’s $1 billion best practices – in building your B2B Sales Machine? See Build Your Sales Machine) I’m a big fan of Marketo, mostly because of the people there like Jon Miller, Kelly Abner and now Maria Pergolino. Marketo’s application and the team’s knowledge and practical experience around demand generation and lead nurturing is A+! So when they shared their new “Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing” with me, I knew it’d be something worth sharing with you, dear readers 🙂 Below is an excerpt from their post about it, and get the full post […]
- [[PebbleStorm] The Art Of PebbleStorm & CEOFlow (July 2009)](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/07/pebblestorm-the-art-of-pebblestorm-ceoflow-july-2009/): Last night I spoke at a Meeting Of The Minds event in Westlake Village (SoCal). MOTMS was started by Kurt Daradics of FreedomSpeaks and Baron Miller, and is a great group of entrepreneurial people that meets monthly. I really had fun sharing with them last night. The format was casual (more of an interview) and not a presentation, and so rather than a slide deck, I put together a collection of sketches I’ve done over the past year, and at different times during the talk I’d call one up to share with people. Here is the collection…enjoy! View more presentations from […]
- [[CEOFlow] A Visual Intention For CEOFlow And More Sketches](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/07/ceoflow-a-visual-intention-for-ceoflow-and-more-sketches/): While my Sales Machine blog deals mostly with the technical and process parts of selling, my big picture/CEO-level thoughts are part of CEOFlow. This post is a reprint of the original: A Visual Intention For CEOFlow And More Sketches A Visual Intention For CEOFlow Do I even need to write anything to describe my intention here, in how CEOs and their people should feel about how the culture and company work? (Seriously – comment below if I do need to explain further!) Where Outrageous Growth Comes From It’s not from having a great product. Or perfect sales and marketing. Those, for […]
- [Why Stalled Deals Happen](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/06/why-stalled-deals-happen/): Recently I attended a webinar by Tom Batchelder of Perficency, the author of “Barking Up A Dead Horse” (isn’t that a great title!?) on why stalled deals happen. Tom did an excellent and clear job in laying out the causes and in giving people some suggestions on what they can,or can’t, do about it. While the slides here speak for themselves, I would pay special attention to slides 5 and 10-14. If the slide viewer is small, notice the “Full Screen” button in the titlebar. Incidentally, I respect and agree with Perficency’s intention for salespeople: “Get real! Be yourself to sell […]
- [5 Questions with Aaron Ross: How to Make $ and the Most Out of Life! (Genius.com post)](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/05/5-questions-with-aaron-ross-how-to-make-and-the-most-out-of-life-genius-com-post/): I just did a blog post for Genius.com touching on making money through enjoyment, leadgen and “Seeds, Nets & Spears”, ColdCalling2.com, and more… Today I ask five questions of Aaron Ross. Aaron is an original and was one of the original sales guys at salesforce.com. While at salesforce.com, he inventedCold Calling 2.0 for his inside sales team that sourced $100 million in recurring revenue. Aaron Ross founded PebbleStorm to help people and CEOs “make money through enjoyment.” Prior to founding PebbleStorm, Aaron Ross was an EIR (Entrepreneur-in-Residence) at Alloy Ventures, a venture capital firm with over $1 billion under management. He […]
- [Create Predictable Pipeline By Moving Prospects Through an "Assembly Line"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/04/create-predictable-pipeline-by-moving-prospects-through-an-assembly-line/): You can’t predictably create revenue without predictable pipeline, and that requires ways to measure and track how pipeline gets created. Here’s how you can do that with your sales development reps / new business people. An effective, easy-to-use sales automation or CRM system makes it convenient now to use a simple idea, the assembly line, as a model to “manufacture new pipeline”, implying a sales organization that can measurably, consistently and predictably produce new sales opportunities. Besides a marketable product, effective message, a sales automation system, and other tidbits necessary for selling, a key piece of creating an assembly line is […]
- [Bessemer's Top 10 Laws for Being "SaaS-y"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/03/bessemers-top-10-laws-for-being-saas-y/): Bessemer Ventures collected a great set of learnings around what it takes to build a successful SaaS (“Software-as-a-Service”) company: Bessemer’s Top 10 Laws for Being “SaaS-y”. It’s excellent! Your key monthly business metrics are: CMRR (Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue), Churn, and Cash flow – “Bookings” is for suckers Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer LifeTime Value (CLTV) are the best indicators of long term value creation Tune before you scale: the Sales Learning Curve is even more critical for SaaS and it takes at least $300k MRR to climb it. Stop at three sales reps until at least two of them […]
- [[CEOFlow] CEO meeting in westside Los Angeles (Santa Monica), March 13th](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/03/ceoflow-ceo-meeting-in-westside-los-angeles-santa-monica-march-13th/): Eric Golden (CEO of Equipois) & I (Aaron Ross bio) are organizing a formal, facilitated CEO group here on the westside that will meet monthly. The group will help CEOs support each other in navigating through and prospering from the economic turmoil, focusing on topics such as creating predictable revenue, and working with investors and customers in the new climate. The CEO group is afilliated with Nitro.la and CEOFlow: Nitro.la, in partnership with USC, UCLA and Caltech, is a non-profit mentoring network created to help develop LA’s entrepreneurial community by “getting more companies funded in greater Los Angeles”. Nitro has extremely […]
- [[CEOFlow] New sketch: "Revenue, Space & Enjoyment"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/02/ceoflow-new-sketch-revenue-space-enjoyment/): As I wrote about in My original notes on frustrations with the way work, uh, works, PebbleStorm: CEOFlow is like “advanced PebbleStorm”. I’ve been playing with my CEOFlow circles for awhile, and finally this morning they really clicked: My sales advisory/consulting service: www.CEOFlow.com/services Subscribe to CEOFlow by Email
- [Phone Works 2008 Inside Sales Compensation Report](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/02/phone-works-2008-inside-sales-compensation-report/): Ah, fun with compensation 🙂 PhoneWorks just published another sales comp report worth checking out. Here’s their introduction and a link to the full online report: A question on everyone’s mind these days is, “How is the slow economy affecting sales compensation and quotas?”. We set out to answer this question. As we do every year in the fourth quarter, Phone Works conducted an online compensation survey of inside sales professionals working in business-to-business technology companies. The majority of these businesses are based in the San Francisco Bay Area. …Read full Phone Works 2008 Inside Sales Compensation Report
- [Marketo interview: "Sales Lead Management: Thought Leadership with Aaron Ross"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2009/01/marketo-interview-sales-lead-management-thought-leadership-with-aaron-ross/): I’ve always really liked the team over at Marketo, which offers lead management software for email marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, sales lead insight, and closed-loop reporting. Jon Miller has a popular and excellent blog, “Modern B2B Marketing”. They just published an interview with me… The next interview in the B2B Marketing thought leader interview series is with Aaron Ross, formerly with salesforce.com and founder of PebbleStorm:CEOFlow. I’ve long been a fan of his blog Build a Sales Machine and I learn something new every time we interact. 1. Tell us a little bit about how you got into marketing, and […]
- [[CEOFlow] Use "Layers of the Onion" to sell for you](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/12/ceoflow-use-layers-of-the-onion-to-sell-for-you/): Spend any time with me talking about lead generation or sales, and the term “layers of the onion” or “onion layers” will come up – a lot. I’ve found that this concept is a great analogy to help teams think through laying out their products and offers. The goal is to make it easier for prospects to “choose their own adventure” in how they get to know a company and its products, step-by-step… Continued on www.CEOFlow.com: Use “Layers of the Onion” to sell for you
- [ConnectAndSell: 100x ROI in generating pipeline!?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/10/connectandsell-100x-roi-in-generating-pipeline/): Very rarely am I blown away by a new sales or marketing product – and ConnectAndSell blew me away, both with the product itself and the fact that customers have been able to generate $100 in pipeline per $1 invested in ConnectAndSell. I was excited enough to personally invest in the company and join their advisory board. Their pitch:“Call a prospect, and what do you get? Voicemail, most of the time. Email a customer to schedule an appointment, and you end up playing tag before agreeing on a time to talk. The Connector is a tool that makes a sales rep […]
- [How to Generate a Steady Flow of Inbound Sales Leads](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/09/how-to-generate-a-steady-flow-of-inbound-sales-leads/): Aaron recently wrote a great post comparing the differences between inbound leads and outbound leads and how they should be treated differently during the sales process. In summary, he states that inbound leads: close at a higher percentage close quicker close without as much sales effort I linked to the post from an article I wrote on the HubSpot blog because I thought it was great. Then, a client of mine, Trish Bertuzzi (Inside Sales Blog), followed the link and plugged HubSpot in Aaron’s comments. Also, I am not sure I agree with your premise of not being able to predict […]
- [CNN Money & Fortune articles..."Why to be wary of commission-only sales staff"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/09/cnn-money-fortune-articles-why-to-be-wary-of-commission-only-sales-staff/): CNN Money/Fortune interviewed me a few months ago, and some quotes turned up in a couple of their articles worth sharing: 1) Fortune Small Business article: “Why to be wary of commission-only sales staff” “Hiring a salesperson on commission sounds like a cost-saver, but investing in your staff usually pays off in the long run. “ 2) CNN Money article on “Hire picture-perfect employees” “We answer three questions about how to find and keep your company’s most important asset: its workers. Plus: Advice on how to conduct a solid interview”(I know it says “Aaron Ross of BlackBox Revenue”…the BlackBox sales productivity/consulting […]
- [9 Principles of Building a Sales Machine](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/09/9-principles-of-building-a-sales-machine/): I love getting and answering questions, as it helps shape my thoughts into useful forms to share. Here’s a recent answer I posted on ExpertCEO (a private online community for CEOs), to a question that was along the lines of… “Do you have any advice for a company with a strong services practice that has sold mostly through partners in the past, but who is now looking to build their own Sales Machine? Any advice would much appreciated.” That’s a pretty broad question, so here’s a broad answer. principles I feel would help anyone get going in the right direction: 1) […]
- [The Problems with "Lumping"; Separate the Four Core Sales Functions](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/09/the-problems-with-lumping-separate-the-four-core-sales-functions/): This post builds off a prior one, “We have a different sales structure here, the sales people just sell!” Building a highly productive, modern sales organization requires increasing specialization – and frankly, it’s a big reason salesforce.com has such an amazing sales organization. Though they take it to the extremes – you wouldn’t believe the number of different kinds of sales groups, inside and out, that salesforce.com has 🙂 One of the biggest sources of lost productivity is the practice of lumping a mix of different responsibilities (such as raw web lead qualification, cold prospecting, closing, account management…) into one general […]
- [“We have a different sales structure here, the sales people just sell!”](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/08/%e2%80%9cwe-have-a-different-sales-structure-here-the-sales-people-just-sell%e2%80%9d/): Over the past few months, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Los Angeles at Leads360 (CEO’s blog) helping them get their frontline sales teams set up (inbound lead qualification and outbound prospecting) and redoing their sales process (part of which is openly published on their site). Onna Young is one of their newer salespeople, and had a funny, and telling, way of observing one of the benefits of separating out the frontline steps of the sales process from the actual selling. Here’s a dramatic re-enactment of a typical conversation she has with other sales friends! “We have a different […]
- [Guy Kawasaki's "Sales.Alltop.com" Launched](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/06/guy-kawasakis-sales-alltop-com-launched/): I met Guy Kawasaki on the streets of Palo Alto a couple of months ago, just before he launched sales.alltop.com. There are some great sales blogs on there – it’s worth checking out. Here’s how he describes Alltop: We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from “all the top” sites on the web. We’ve grouped these collections — “aggregations” — into individual Alltop sites based on topics such as environment, photography, science, Muslim, celebrity gossip, military, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, we display the headlines of the latest stories from dozens of sites […]
- [Fun with Comparing "Inbound" and "Outbound" Leads](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/06/fun-with-comparing-inbound-and-outbound-leads/): The term “lead generation” is so broad that it creates all kinds of confusion! One important concept is “inbound” versus “outbound” (and yes, in leadgen there are few black and white cases, even here, but this differentiation helps). While speaking with Laura Merling today at Mashery, I started sketching out some ideas on how to compare leads that come to you versus leads that you have to go fetch. (Side note: does anyone have better terms than ‘inbound v outbound’? Even these can be misleading.) Inbound leads are, as it implies, leads that come to your company and into your website […]
- [Inbound Lead Management Best Practices [Updated]](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/04/inbound-lead-management-best-practices-updated-2/): This is an updated version of the “Never Waste A Lead” post from September. Back then my partner and I presented at a BMA (Business Marketing Association) event. Here was the event description: Your marketing programs are generating plenty of leads, especially from your emarketing campaigns, but are they getting followed up on? How effective is your sales organization at contacting your leads? How many never get called, or get only a token effort? Lost or ignored leads is one of the most common bottlenecks of marketing executives trying to maximize revenue from marketing-geneated leads. Instead of getting frustrated with sales, […]
- ["The Ultimate Guide to Sales Force Automation: 100-Plus Links and Resources"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/03/the-ultimate-guide-to-sales-force-automation-100-plus-links-and-resources/): InsideCRM posted a handy-dandy list of 100 link to various kinds of resources that could be useful to evaluating or getting better use out of SFA systems: “The Ultimate Guide to Sales Force Automation: 100-Plus Links and Resources”http://www.insidecrm.com/features/ultimate-sfa-guide-030408/ A nice example of effective selling (or is it marketing?)On a side note, I’d like to point out the effective way InsideCRM alerted me to this article and encouraged me to publish a note about it. Two things: Effective communication: They sent me a SIMPLE, SHORT note (posted below) that was in plain english, wasn’t pushy or salesy, and spoke for itself. It […]
- ["Why cost-per-lead budgets fail and fewer leads are better"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/03/why-cost-per-lead-budgets-fail-and-fewer-leads-are-better/): Brian Carroll put up a post that aligns perfectly with my own thinking on why “cost per lead” marketing goals and budgets can be misleading at their best, and downright dangerous at their worst. In case you think I’m implying that calculating the cost per lead isn’t helpful – no, tracking cost per lead metrics can be useful as just one of many useful metrics. The problem is when cost per lead influences budgeting or purchasing behavior too strongly; then it becomes damaging. Simplistic cost per lead goals incent marketing teams to buy mass quantities of lower quality leads with lower […]
- [Stop Obsessing Over "The Decision Maker"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2008/02/stop-obsessing-over-the-decision-maker/): …and start obsessing over the decision-making process. One of the changes in B2B selling is that, instead of decision makers making their own, often arbitrary decisions, purchase decisions today are made through a collaborative process involving multiple people and teams. This has always been a part of B2B sales, but now it’s dominant. The ‘decision making process’ is now more important than ‘the decision maker’. Instead of this question or its variations:“Who is the decision maker?”“Who signs the check?” Use questions like this:“Who is involved in making the decision?”“How will the decision be made?”“What is the decision making process?” Yes, there […]
- [Phone Works' Q4 2007 VP Sales Comp Report](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/12/phone-works-q4-2007-vp-sales-comp-report/): Phone Works offers some useful compensation benchmarking data every year.The report: Q4 2007 VP Sales Compensation Report“Every year in the fourth quarter, Phone Works conducts a compensation survey of “Chief Sales Officers” of business-to-business technology companies. The majority of these businesses are based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Survey respondents include employees of both private and public companies. The size of the participating organizations varies greatly, with annual revenues ranging from the $1-10M range to over $1 billion. The average total number of employees is 972 and ranges from 11 – 19,000 and 11% of the respondents are from public […]
- [The Fatal Mistake Boards & VP Sales Will Make In 2008 Planning](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/12/the-fatal-mistake-boards-vp-sales-will-make-in-2008-planning/): I apologize in advance if this post, even if it isn’t that long, touches a variety of topics in one shot. I’m venting frustrations about a mistake I see made over and over again. For companies selling products worth less than $100,000-$250,000, the old school strategy of hiring more feet-on-the-street to drive revenue growth is failing more often. Or just fails. Let’s take companies in fast-growth periods who are focused mainly on adding new customers (rather than more mature companies who drive much of their growth through their customer base). The problem: the old bedrock sales principles that usually worked now […]
- ["Sell To Success" (The All-Natural Close)](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/11/sell-to-success-the-all-natural-close/): People from the Sales 1.0 mindset live by “Always Be Closing!”. They destructively compete with coworkers. They close wrong-fit customers. They sell to get paid, and that’s the only reason they stay in the job. This isn’t the future of selling, especially not in a Sales Machine world. The future of high-value selling, the Sales Machine way, is “Sell To Success”. It’s salespeople who believe in their company’s vision and value. It’s salespeople helping new prospects appreciate that vision, and then seeing these new customers succeed. They don’t close customers that aren’t a good long-term fit. It’s working with a team […]
- [Having Trouble Getting Salespeople To Do ____?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/11/having-trouble-getting-salespeople-to-do-____/): Does every sales executive and manager gets frustrated with salespeople not doing as they’re told? “They don’t use the CRM system”…”they don’t make enough calls”…”they don’t sell to value”…”they don’t understand their compensation plan”…”our training session attendance is poor”…”they don’t forecast”… Look, you can bang your head against the wall as much as you want to, but trying to force or coerce salespeople into doing things is a very painful and frustrating way to try to drive behavior. AND it doesn’t even work very well today! Why:1) People hate to be told what to do, and thus coercion actually creates resistanceHow […]
- ["Build A Sales Machine" To Be Included In Top 500 Blogs](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/11/build-a-sales-machine-to-be-included-in-top-500-blogs/): Vicky Zhou is putting together a new book, to be out late in 2008. Here’s a note from her: “Build A Sales Machine To Be Included In Top 500 BlogsBack in the day, if you didn’t know HTML, or code, you couldn’t publish content on the web. Well, nowadays with tools such as WordPress, and services like Blogspot, and Xanga, anyone.. yes anyone can tell the whole world what is on their mind through blogging.But, there really isn’t a robust way to search for the best blogs on any specific topic. Sure, there’s Technorati, but what else? Besides, much of the […]
- [Most Influential Books On "Build A Sales Machine"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/11/most-influential-books-on-build-a-sales-machine/): In 2002, I went to salesforce to get my ‘MBA in building a sales organization’. Although I’d managed a VP Sales previously, I’d actually never done sales myself. Of course, I read all kinds of sales books while at salesforce.com. However, although each book had a few useful ideas, I didn’t get much out of any one book. I felt the authors usually took a few good , simple ideas (about 10-20 pages worth), and then hid those ideas among 300 other pages and cruft in order to make the book big and expensive enough. So – I threw away all […]
- ["Cold Calling 2.0" Presentation](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/11/cold-calling-2-0-presentation/): Here are the slides to the presentation we gave to the Business Marketing Association in mid-October. You can also find the ebook & Success Kit at www.ColdCalling2.com. Cold Calling 2.0 presentation (BlackBox Revenue) – Upload a doc Read this doc on Scribd: Cold Calling 2.0 presentation (BlackBox Revenue)
- [Stupid Closing Tricks](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/10/stupid-closing-tricks/): Last week I put up a post about “Baseball Farm Teams, the WSJ, and Sales Talent”. I got a comment that made a GREAT point worth its own post. From David Belden, Director of BusDev of HubPages:“Your quote about 1995 calling and wanting their sales techniques back is hysterical! I’ve definitely had that same though when people have tried the classic 1980’s “closing” techniques with me. My thought is that if you can help me understand and see why it’s the right fit for us to do business, you won’t even have to “close”. I’ll be excited to do the deal […]
- [Baseball Farm Teams, the WSJ, and Sales Talent](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/10/baseball-farm-teams-the-wsj-and-sales-talent/): I’ve written a couple of times on here about how the best source of finding sales talent is the talent you grow in-house, through a farm team system:http://salesmachine.blogspot.com/2006/09/where-do-i-hire-great-salespeople.html So here’s something you may or may not care about: I have zero interest or attention for tracking sports (even though I like to play them). However, I’m highly interested in systems that lead to sustainable success (try saying that three times fast!). I loved Michael Lewis’ Moneyball. Anyone that’s worked with myself or Erythean Martin (cofounder of the upcoming company “BlackBox Revenue”) knows what sticklers we are on figuring out what actually […]
- [Fear-based Motivation](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/10/fear-based-motivation/): This post could also be titled “When Metrics Attack!” although, in this case, the metrics aren’t really the root issue, they are just a symptom of dysfunctional management. Read below to see how to create an environment with a 75% turnover rate…. “Aaron, Unfortunately we don’t have anyone who is in charge of sales productivity. We don’t even have a half-way decent management structure. It’s the sales manager, a dozen regional account managers and a few inside sales reps. Our manager’s idea of being productive is being at work and on the phone 10-12 hours day without any focus on what’s […]
- [Cold Calling 2.0](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/09/cold-calling-2-0/): I’m working on some content and materials around “Cold Calling 2.0″…which should never include a cold call! [Update: see www.ColdCalling2.com] Cold Call: “A telephone call to someone who is not expecting contact” Synonyms: flailing, wasting time, phone-spam, frustration, money-down-the-drain…If anyone on my team at salesforce.com ever made a cold call …my process had failed. Just to be clear, “Cold Calling 2.0” is still about salespeople proactively developing cold accounts to increase incremental revenue with calls and emails…but with different strategies and processes than ‘cold calling’. The sales prospecting mentalities and methods of 5-10 years ago are practically, or really, a waste […]
- [How NOT To Treat Customers](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/09/how-not-to-treat-customers/): This is just ugly. Please treat your customers better than this…and they’ll be happy to renew their services with you rather than looking for any excuse to cancel: http://consumerist.com/consumer/leaks/5-confessions-of-a-comcast-customer-service-rep-304368.php
- [Inbound Lead Management Best Practices [Updated]](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/09/inbound-lead-management-best-practices-updated/): This is an updated version of the “Never Waste A Lead” post from September. Back then my partner and I presented at a BMA (Business Marketing Association) event. Here was the event description: Your marketing programs are generating plenty of leads, especially from your emarketing campaigns, but are they getting followed up on? How effective is your sales organization at contacting your leads? How many never get called, or get only a token effort? Lost or ignored leads is one of the most common bottlenecks of marketing executives trying to maximize revenue from marketing-geneated leads. Instead of getting frustrated with sales, […]
- [Waterfall Metrics](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/09/waterfall-metrics/): Example “waterfall” metrics. What are your conversion rates along each step of your lead generation and sales process? What do you want them to be? It’s easier and more cost-effective to first increase conversion rates along the chain before trying to increase the number of people coming into the top of the funnel. Also, if your conversion rates are too low, spending more money to increase the number of suspects entering the front of the funnel is like trying to scoop more water with a colander – most of your effort is wasted.
- [My Two Favorite Sales Diagnosis Questions](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/09/my-two-favorite-sales-diagnosis-questions/): When I initially dig into understanding a company’s sales model and bottlenecks, I have two favorite questions of everyone I get to meet: 1) To understand how things work:“What’s a day in your life look like?” 2) To get a sense of what doesn’t work or is the biggest time-sink:“What’s the biggest waste of your time and energy during your day?” However you phrase it, the second question ALWAYS elicits useful insight into what’s not working smoothly in a company or process. Ask it of a cross-section of people and teams and I guarantee you’ll find some common root issues that […]
- [If You Sell To Sales Executives...](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/08/if-you-sell-to-sales-executives/): If you sell to sales executives….change your fiscal year to January or February. Why make life unnecessarily harder on yourself by trying to close deals with the very people that are trying to close their own deals at the same time? And by the way, Salesforce.com, a company that knows something about selling to sales executives, ends their fiscal year January 31st.
- [Self-Managing Teams & Organizations](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/08/self-managing-teams-organizations/): I love this company Semco, and the book “The Seven Day Weekend”. I’m a complete believer in working to design teams and organizations that are as self-managing as possible. Not only because you get a better culture and results, but it also frees you up to focus on proactively investing your team, versus reactively managing issues. If you connect with this summary, the book is completely worth reading (link is below). “Semco has no official structure. It has no organizational chart. There’s no business plan or company strategy, no twoyear or five-year plan, no goal or mission statement, no longterm budget. […]
- [Interesting Q&A with Jeffrey Pfeffer](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/07/interesting-qa-with-jeffrey-pfeffer/): Guy Kawasaki published a great post (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/07/ten-questions-w.html) “Ten Questions with Jeffrey Pfeffer“, author of What Were They Thinking?: Unconventional Wisdom About Management Here are a few excerpts that I thought were most relevant to building a sales machine. Red hi-lites are my own emphases: * Question: What are the characteristics of a good incentive plan? Answer: Incentives should be large enough to provide an occasion for celebrating success but not so large as to distort behavior. And incentives can include recognition and things other than money. Companies get themselves into trouble all the time by being too clever with their incentives. […]
- [New Thread: Fear, Corporate Culture, Potential](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/07/new-thread-fear-corporate-culture-potential/): As much as better processes, such as sales processes, can help an organization improve short-term results, the best strategy for systemic long-term growth depends entirely upon your people and management philosophies. For example – do you reward risks and failure, or punish them? (You might say you reward risks, but what have your actions communicated to your organization? What did you do to the last person who tried something new and failed?) In addition to simple sales improvement ideas, I believe cultural and organizational ideas can set the stage for even more fundamental, long-term success of a team or company. However, […]
- [The Three Ways To Increase Revenue](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/06/the-three-ways-to-increase-revenue/): There are only three core ways a business can increase revenue: You can acquire more new customers (assume this includes new types of customers too) You can increase the revenue per customer (new and existing) Increase the renewal rates of customers When businesses get into heavy-duty customer acquisition mode, they often lose sight of their current customers and their needs. Sales gets headcount, but account management and support does not. Renewal rates aren’t measured. Customers get taken for granted more than they should. It’s a lot cheaper to keep (and then upsell) a current customer than to acquire a new one. […]
- [10 Ways To Improve CRM Adoption (updated)](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/06/10-ways-to-improve-crm-adoption-updated/): Salesforce.com is a great tool, but like any tool it’s only as valuable as proficiently as its used. As easy to use as salesforce.com is, many companies still struggle to increase adoption rates. Here are some tips. This post is a little wordy for now, but at some point I’ll simplify and repost it. Someday 🙂 I believe that tools can shape behavior more than just ideas. I would love to hear from anyone who’s created useful adoption tools. Finally, note that almost every idea here applies to any system…not just salesforce.com. Adoption Core Values 1) Executives must lead by example […]
- [Tangible Credibility](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/05/tangible-credibility/): Below is a paraphrased excerpt from a Guerilla Consulting post:http://guerrillaconsulting.typepad.com/guerrilla_marketing_for_c/2006/08/is_this_compell.html Here is a comparison between advertisements between two different consulting firms, as an example of the power of credibility: Consulting Ad #1: “Experience has shown us that if we define measurable objectives and set realistic schedules together, build joint teams, and above all, anticipate and mitigate risks together, we can improve our chances.” Consulting Ad #2: “Accenture and Dell conceived and implemented an approach that allows Dell to operate on no more than two hours of inventory at a time. Now in place at Dell’s plants around the world, the program […]
- [Do You Believe In Theory X or Theory Y?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/05/do-you-believe-in-theory-x-or-theory-y/): Douglas McGregor developed a philosophical view of humankind with his Theory X and Theory Y in 1960. These are two opposing perceptions about how people view human behavior at work and organizational life. THEORY XWith Theory X assumptions, management’s role is to coerce and control employees.* People have an inherent dislike for work and will avoid it whenever possible.* People must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment in order to get them to achieve the organizational objectives.* People prefer to be directed, do not want responsibility, and have little or no ambition.* People seek security above all else. THEORY […]
- ["Manufacturing" New Business](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/05/manufacturing-new-business/): An effective, easy-to-use sales automation or CRM system makes it convenient now to use a simple idea, the assembly line, as an initial model to “manufacture new business”, which implies a sales organization that can measurably, consistently and predictably produce revenue. Salesforce.com’s outbound teleprospecting team calls into F2000 companies to generate new sales opportunities for the field salespeople. The team uses a methodical, “assembly line” approach to produce consistent results. Below are the assembly line stages used to organize prospective companies and move them through the prospecting process. These stages track the status of any targeted company, and are separate but […]
- [CEOs: 4 Inside Sales Fundamentals](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/05/ceos-4-inside-sales-fundamentals/): A predictable inside sales machine depends heavily on process, metrics and common sense across four main areas. 1) A STRATEGY THAT MAKES SENSEThis point applies most to new companies just figuring out their initial revenue strategy, as well as field sales-driven companies considering selling a new product with an inside sales arm. Does the company have a product that buyers need (not want), in a specific market? Does the packaging/pricing work for the new market? Don’t invest in a big sales team until your product is ready to be sold, and the pricing/packaging is tested! Beta test your product, market and […]
- [Sales Reps Can't Talk To Infinite Accounts](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/05/sales-reps-cant-talk-to-infinite-accounts/): If a sales rep can only touch 20 new (early stage prospect) accounts this month, or 5 new accounts this week, or 1 per day…how do you help them understand and prioritize the highest-potential accounts to spend their time on? Salespeople have a limited number of accounts they can touch each day / week / month. It doesn’t matter how many accounts a rep can call on if they’re calling on the wrong types. Or, if they spend 30% of their time on the wrong kinds of accounts (not uncommon), your company [with $10m revenue, 20% cost of sales, 30% of […]
- [The Joy Of Weekly Pipeline Metrics](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/05/the-joy-of-weekly-pipeline-metrics/): Besides closed sales, do you know weekly how well you’re tracking towards making the month or quarter? What kind of predictive progress metrics do you track? Will it be a total surprise at the end of the quarter if you hit a wall and miss your number? I’m a fan of tracking weekly or monthly pipeline progress metrics (how much was created, how much do we have, what is the quality of it?) If you understand your sales model metrics, you can tell weekly whether or not you’re likely to make or break the quarter. Examplelet’s say you’re a $30 million […]
- [Ease New Prospecting Reps Into The Role](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/04/ease-new-prospecting-reps-into-the-role/): When any company hires a tele-prospecting rep, of course the company is in a hurry to get them to generate new business, and wants them on the phone ASAP! But it ends up being a better investment of time to ease the new hire into things, first training them on the business, then having them call into existing leads, and finally contacting cold prospects. Think about it – the person who has to be able to have a productive conversation with someone who’s never heard about their company has to be very smart about how to probe for issues and present […]
- [Build An Advisory Board](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/04/build-an-advisory-board/): If you’re a young company trying to raise money (i.e. sell venture capitalists on yourselves), or land the first set of customers, one of the first things to put together is an advisory board. It adds credibility to your story, extends your sales effort (now you have more champions of your cause), and increases the attention you’ll get from the right people. Who To Target– Who has revenue- or funding-related contacts in your target markets, whether for business development, sales or VC opportunities?– Where are you weak in experience? Who would be valuable for ongoing management, technical, product design, legal, sales, […]
- [Great Post On Building A List](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/04/great-post-on-building-a-list/): If you’re thinking about putting a marketing list together: “On building the Lists for B2B Lead Generation Programs”http://blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/2007/03/would_you_buy_t.html#more
- [Pricing Complexity Must Be Less Than Sales Cycle Complexity](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/04/pricing-complexity-must-be-less-than-sales-cycle-complexity/): [Sparked by a call from Erik Charles from the UC Irvine Business School] Pricing is almost always a pain to decide on. Among many issues, one important one is striking a balance between:– Simplicity, which reduces sales cycle transaction costs such as time spent on pricing education and negotiation, and– Complexity, which enables you to maximize revenue per contract. This leads me, and hopefully you, to a simple conclusion:Pricing complexity should never be greater than the sales cycle complexity. If you sell a complex product, you can afford to make pricing complex – price negotiation is an acceptable transaction cost of […]
- [A Final Sales Rep Interview Challenge](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/04/a-final-sales-rep-interview-challenge/): [After a conversation with Yogesh Sharma, the CEO of Personiva] Here’s an exercise idea you can use as a “Final Challenge” in the sales rep interviewing process. Note that it’s not a good exercise for sales executive. This is especially relevant to young companies, or mature companies beginning to sell a young product, where the sales playbook isn’t clearly defined yet. When the sales tools, messages and process keep changing, testing for what works, companies need sales people that can ask smart business questions, create their own tools on the fly and solve problems in whatever situation they’re thrown in. Example […]
- [How Should I Organize My Salesforce?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/04/how-should-i-organize-my-salesforce/): What Kind of Inside Sales Team Do I Want?Most b2b direct sales teams can improve their productivity by segmenting into four major types of roles: 1) Inside sales reacting to inbound leads (high-volume, simple leadgen process)2) Inside sales proactively prospecting into specific target markets (low-volume, complex leadgen process)3) Inside quota-carrying sales (high-volume, simple closing process)4) Outside quota-carrying sales (low-volume, complex closing process) Here’s some more reasoning behind why this works so well. Sales Productivity Increases With Comparative AdvantageOne of the simplest, but most important, ways to build an effective sales machine is to organize into distinct groups that have simple, focused […]
- [Define A Clear Target Customer Profile; Who Is Your Match?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/04/define-a-clear-target-customer-profile-who-is-your-match/): Sales and marketing teams are most effective when they have a crystal-clear picture of who they’re targeting and how their offering can help that target. Any fuzziness in the definitions of the target industry or prospect will slow down the marketing cycle. If your Chief Spousal Officer told you to meet them at a Starbucks in New York, but couldn’t tell you what street it was on, you’d waste a lot of time in the wrong neighborhoods. And likewise, if your CEO tells you to close “Fortune 1000” customers or “companies with money”, but can’t tell you exactly what kinds will […]
- [Different Inside Sales Roles: Qualifying & Closing](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/03/different-inside-sales-roles-qualifying-closing/): One important aspect of inside sales is usually breaking out into separate jobs the functions of… 1) “Sales development” – sales reps who are dedicated to qualifying inbound leads or generating new opportunities, from 2) Quota-carrying reps that close deals. This is important to making it profitable to work small orders (perhaps down to $1000). The “closing” reps can focus purely on working sales cycles with viable prospects (even small ones), and without wasting time disqualifying or chasing obviously poor small deals.
- [Should Inside Lead Reps Report To Marketing Or Sales? [UPDATED]](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/03/should-inside-lead-reps-report-to-marketing-or-sales-updated/): They should report to sales. And while we’re on the topic, perhaps even more importantly, they should be compensated on a mix of “qualified leads” and revenue sourced from the leads. (Of course, this means the organization needs to agree on a definition for a “qualified” lead, and must have a way to track them!) An exception:If no one in sales has the capacity or interest to nurture the inside lead qualification / prospecting (non-quota carrying) sales reps, have the reps report to the person most able to give them management attention…as a stopgap for while you hire or develop a […]
- [Example Prospecting Stages](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/03/example-prospecting-stages/): This is a simpler version of the process steps outlined in the “Manufacturing New Business” post, for a company just getting started in building a prospecting process. This simpler version of the prospecting stages could be used by quota-carrying sales reps who also need to do some prospecting.
- [Improve Call Effectiveness Without Scripts](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/03/improve-call-effectiveness-without-scripts/): Call scripts have been a classic tool in telemarketing and sales, but executives and business people have become much more tuned to canned questions. We use two simple but much more effective tools to plan and execute calls: AAA Call Planning and Call Flows. “AAA Call Planning” Even if a sales person take just five minutes, they can quickly generate a list of objectives for their call: What Answers do you want to learn in the call? What Attitudes do you wish the prospect to feel? What Actions should occur after the call? “Call Flow” The order of questions (how the […]
- [The Most Common Sales Bottleneck: Lead Management](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/03/the-most-common-sales-bottleneck-lead-management/): The most common bottleneck I’ve seen in companies is lead management, or crossing the chasm between marketing and sales by establishing efficient methods for capturing, filtering, routing and qualifying leads before they’re passed to the salesforce. It’s one of the easiest areas to improve, and can return a fast ROI for the time invested. The low hanging fruit is to increase revenue from the leads you’re already getting.Example Issues* Website is confusing to prospects trying to find specific information, and doesn’t clearly route prospects to relevant content or offers* Registration forms are too long, ask the wrong questions* No lead management […]
- [Can Outsourcing Lead Generation Make Sense For Your Business?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/03/can-outsourcing-lead-generation-make-sense-for-your-business/): There are innumerable companies, domestic and overseas, who promise to help your company generate more leads and appointments. For all the noise, it’s by no means a certain or cost-effective way to improve your sales or leadgen productivity. In fact, most companies have had little success in trying to outsource major lead generation activities. Also, Gartner recently published a report showing “Outsourcing costs more than in-house”, with a particularly important quote that “”If all you are trying to do is save money, you are not going to be successful.” Here are the important angles to consider when and how outsourcing could […]
- [Best Prospecting Practices of Salesforce.com](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/02/best-prospecting-practices-of-salesforce-com/): Sales prospecting is now a core competency of salesforce.com. I haven’t yet come across a company that has a more effective system, and I’ve looked hard, since I am always looking for better, more productive methods. If prospecting is important to your team, and especially if you have people dedicated to it, it’s worth taking a look at a couple of presentations salesforce.com has posted from past Dreamforces: Dreamforce 2005 Prospecting SessionI’d focus on the last 2/3 of this one. The Breeze version has audio, and you can easily skip around topics (I’m the second speaker). Dreamforce 2006 “Top 10 Prospecting […]
- [Stop Measuring Calls Per Day](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/02/stop-measuring-calls-per-day/): Perhaps the most classic sales manager question, to another, is “How many calls a day do your people make?” Back when you couldn’t measure anything else easily, this was useful. But compared to measuring:– “Call connects” per day (conversations with prospects)– Scheduled appointments set per day– Quotes or new opportunities per week– $ of pipeline generated per week …or other ‘results’ metrics that are leading indicators to revenue, calls per day just isn’t useful, and actually can be hurtful as a distraction from more relevant progress metrics.
- [Your Team: Salespeople Or Business People?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/01/your-team-salespeople-or-business-people/): Many companies today want to move from selling products at a manager level to selling value at the executive level. It’s easier said than done, but part of that transition is a mental one from “selling” to “helping”/”problem solving”. * Can your sales people help improve the businesses of their prospects and customers?* Can you develop your reps to refocus in this positive direction?* Will prospects learn something from your sales people?
- [Clarity = Sales Success](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2007/01/clarity-sales-success/): A very big part of helping your sales reps succeed is just creating simple rules and expectations. Anything confusing will lead to wasted time and energy by the rep. Some examples of what should be crystal clear: * A clear territory (& ownership rules)* A clear compensation plan & goals* A clear profile of the target customer(s)* A clear process to generate opportunities at these targets* A clear sales process to work and close opportunities* Clear sales support processes (booking an order, finding & sending collateral, etc)* Clear visibility into their ‘business’ (CRM dashboards)* For new reps: A clear idea of […]
- [Best Practices: Online Demonstrations](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/12/best-practices-online-demonstrations/): Here are the best practices and sample questions to make sure your online demonstration goes smoothly. 1. The Demo Is NOT About Your Product:* Prospects don’t care about you or your product. They care about their business – can you demonstrate how you can create value for them?* If you ask a prospect ahead of time about how their business works and what they need, they will tell you.* Make it interactive and conversational rather than a 1-way presentation.2. Preparation:* Test Run: Do a quick practice run ahead of time with a coworker.* The Screen Killer: What happens if your screen […]
- [Prospecting Mistakes: Top 5 in “Response Handling”](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/11/prospecting-mistakes-top-5-in-%e2%80%9cresponse-handling%e2%80%9d/): Salespeople constantly receive email replies from prospects, and there are some too-common mistakes made in handling them efficiently. I found that by reviewing how salespeople handled email responses from prospects, in just 5-10 minutes I could get a sense of if the salesperson was stuck on a part of the prospecting process. It was one of the most insightful and efficient coaching methods I used. These mistakes are especially applicable to inside salespeople, though they can apply to all kinds of salespeople across roles and functions. 1) Letting prospect’s emails/voicemails drop through the cracksSalespeople are busy! Without a system to ensure […]
- [Every Action Needs an Objective: Calls](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/10/every-action-needs-an-objective-calls/): Don’t confuse rep (or your) activity with results. Unfortunately, people get into routines and stop thinking before doing. In sales, everyone especially needs to make it a habit to define the desired outcome of sending an email, making a call or joining a meeting. Example: callsDo your reps know beforehand what outcomes they want from each call they make? A plain cold call can have a variety of different objectives, such as (in order of value):“Set up a future phone call to learn about their current situation”“Learn about their business to determine if an appointment is worthwhile (or not)”“Get an appointment […]
- [How Do I Build a List of Target Companies and Contacts?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/10/how-do-i-build-a-list-of-target-companies-and-contacts/): * How do I build a list of targeted prospect names?* Do I buy contact lists and cold call into targeted accounts?– If so, who and what level do I call into? Where do I start?* What other outbound techniques actually work? Wait!! What’s Your Lead Generation Strategy and Plan?By planning a real strategy around preparation, execution and follow-through of your lead generation plans, you can avoid wasting big chunks of time, money and opportunity. There is a cost in clutter, distraction and time if you build a big list of unorganized and untargeted contacts. And especially in b2b, quality is […]
- [Conversational Sales Questions](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/10/conversational-sales-questions/): Here are the best questions for conducting a “conversational” sales call – one that seems natural and that just ‘flows’. Each question is powerful yet non-threatening, making it easy to both ask and answer. About the first question: people have a natural inclination to say ‘no’ to questions, especially if they don’t know the other person. If you phrase the question in a way that a ‘no’ answer is beneficial to you, you’ll get better results. • [For unscheduled calls] Did I catch you at a bad time?• Would a quick discussion to find out if there is a potential business […]
- [A Sales Drumbeat](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/09/a-sales-drumbeat/): Do I set quotas annually, quarterly or monthly? This helps determine the pace of the sales drumbeat. There isn’t necessarily a single answer per sales organization – it will vary by individual sales team and their target customers. One company, with different sales teams, can have multiple drumbeats. Is the sales cycle several months? Quarterly quotas might work best. Is it 15-30 days? Go for monthly quotas with the ability to over-achieve every month, forgetting about annual quotas. It’s a mistake to assume what worked in the past (even five years ago) will work now, or what worked in a big […]
- [How to Generate Real Leads from Tradeshows/Conferences](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/09/how-to-generate-real-leads-from-tradeshowsconferences/): Conferences and tradeshows have a bad (ok, terrible) reputation for generating worthwhile leads. For good reason! However, it’s not the tradeshows’ fault – the responsibility for lead generation falls to the attendees, who have to carefully think through the whole lead generation process (including prior preparation and post-event follow through) on how to generate business from events. You need a process that emphasizes quality of leads over quantity of names. The Team– Who is the person responsible for lead generation for the specific event?– Who is the “event sales team”? (Who are the sales reps/people doing the work?) It’s best to […]
- [Build Success From The Ground Up](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/06/build-success-from-the-ground-up/): Don’t Miss The Trees for The Forest A high-achieving team is made up of successful individuals. If each of your individuals isn’t successful, how will the team succeed as a whole? To maximize the potential of the team, you can’t focus on managing just at the team level, you need to work closely with each individual on their needs and what will make them successful. Who Works For Whom?My team doesn’t work for me; I work for my team. The team members don’t need to make me successful; I need to make them successful. This is something that insecure managers have […]
- ["Where Do I Hire Great Salespeople?"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/04/where-do-i-hire-great-salespeople/): I’m asked this all the time. Of course it’s always hard to find great people, whether in sales or any other function. The best long-term source of salespeople is to grow and develop your own. Combine one part veteran with 2-3 parts young, smart and adaptable…and mix in a system that keeps challenging people to learn new things and stretching, step by step. The best salespeople are the ones that have grown up in your company, and know it, the people, and the customers inside and out. Create A Farm Team SystemThink about how you can create a career path for […]
- [Rare Find: Sales Book Worth Reading](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/03/rare-find-sales-book-worth-reading/): I VERY rarely run across a sales book or methodology that’s really worth reading, but here’s one that Ken Rudin, CEO of Lucidera, turned me on to: http://neuromarketing.blogs.com The blog itself is worthless. Go straight to the book, which has some great insights. Despite the gimmicky packaging, it’s definitely worth reading.
- [Discovery Questions](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2006/03/discovery-questions/): Example Discovery Questions For Larger Accounts:1. Why are we talking to you today?2. Can you tell me about your business? How are the relevant teams and/or divisions are organized?3. Who is the decision maker? Who else is involved?4. What is your current system/situation?5. Pains: what do you need to do to improve your business?6. What is a “Day in the Life” of someone affected by the project?7. Evaluation criteria?8. Competition: what other options are you looking at?9. Timeframes: what are your goals to a) make a decision and b) complete the project?10. What is your budget? Does it also have an […]
- [6 Responsibilities Of A Manager](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/05/6-responsibilities-of-a-manager/): A no-nonsense management model:1. Choose people carefully2. Set expectations3. Remove obstacles4. Motivate your people5. Develop your people6. Improve it next time Choose People CarefullyIt often makes sense to hire for talent and adaptability than for experience. Over time, the best employees are ones that can adapt to changing circumstances and roles. A fast-learning, hungry hire can make up a reasonable lack of experience in 6-12 months, and then surpass more-experienced peers. My best performing sales person in 2004 had never held a sales role before he joined our team. If you have a great candidate but are concerned about their experience, […]
- [The Very Best Salespeople...](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/05/the-very-best-salespeople/): Hire and promote carefully. The best salespeople are more like consultants or business people than salespeople: Listen much more than they talk Are problem-solvers Understand their customers’ industry / business / needs (key to both building trust with customers as well as understanding how to help solve their problems) Believe in their product and company Demonstrate unquestionable integrity Can get things done in their own company (via internal networks)
- [Should You Consider Commission-Only Salespeople?](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/03/should-you-consider-commission-only-salespeople/): Each executive understands what’s best for their unique market and business, but it’s hard to imagine a situation in which I would hire commission-only salespeople. Creating an environment of success is critical to help your people succeed, and ‘commission-only’ doesn’t demonstrate commitment by the sales leadership or the company that they’re really there and incented to help their salespeople succeed. Pros: * “Reduced risk” in hiring (there are still time and opportunity costs) * Salepeople are highly incented to close business Cons: * The company will attract inexperienced salespeople that can’t get better jobs. * Commission-only increases the motivation to “do […]
- [Internal Training Builds A Better Salesforce](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/03/internal-training-builds-a-better-salesforce/): Ongoing training can be the cheapest and easiest (yes, easiest) way to improve your team’s peformance. It takes committment and focus, but is always a great investment of your time. The Best & Cheapest Investment In Your People & Productivity… …is consistent, regular training and coaching (especially new hires). I see again and again what a difference regular training makes in improving sales skills and results, reducing ramp time and increasing promotability. Simple monitored practice exercises, with feedback, can make a dramatically noticeable difference in performance, whether in public speaking, objection handling, phone skills, demos or personal/career development. Outside Trainers: Hire To […]
- [Weekly Training: "____ University"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/03/weekly-training-____-university/): A regular drumbeat of training is the best way to create lasting results. We run a weekly, self-organized training session modeled after the Toastmasters format, but customized for our specific business needs. A Simple FormatThere is a regular format, with a variety of roles that are rotated through the team. Each role is filled by a team member, and at the end of the meeting the next week’s roles are re-assigned: Meeting Leader Opening (1min) Sales Skills 1 (10-20min) Quick Questions (10-15min) Sales Skills 2 (10-20min) New Best Practice (10min) Industry/Vertical Learning (15min) Meeting Leader Closing (5min) The entire meeting averages […]
- [I'd Rather Be Persistent Than Lucky](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/03/id-rather-be-persistent-than-lucky/): I could not disagree more with the statement “I’d rather be lucky than smart.” You can’t replicate true luck (not to be confused with the ‘made luck’ that comes from diligent preparation and determination…such as an overnight success that was 10 years in the making). Being smart isn’t good enough either. Smart people are as likely to give up on objectives as often as anyone else… or perhaps they give up more often, since they expect things to more easily to them. You can’t rely on luck. You can rely on persistence. ‘Nothing in this world can take the place of […]
- [GREAT Tool For Gathering Survey Information](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/02/great-tool-for-gathering-survey-information/): Whether you’re running a small internal survey (even just your own team), or gathering customer research, SurveyMonkey is a phenomenal tool, both simple to and effective or even free limited use). It definitely sets the standard for easy information gathering!www.surveymonkey.com
- [Retaining Star Employees](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/02/retaining-star-employees/): Your company’s long-term success will always depend on maintaining and developing great people. Are you at risk of losing any star employees? Would you even know if you were at risk, or will you find out when they tell you of a new offer they just received? There’s a great way to measure the satisfaction of your key employees. Buckingham & Coffman’s book, “First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently”, outlines 12 key measures for employees: 1) Do I know what is expected of me at work?2) Do I have the materials and equipment I need […]
- [The Best Definition of Success](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/02/the-best-definition-of-success/): As a manager, I believe the best definition of success is the one Coach Wooden (www.coachwooden.com) defined success in 1934: “Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” People don’t change that much, so don’t waste time trying to fix what’s missing. Focus on the strengths they already have, and drawing out what they can naturally do well. That alone is hard enough without worrying about fixing them! Tried everything and you’re still stumped when trying to coach and help someone? […]
- [Books You Should Read](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/02/books-you-should-read/): These books have real, interesting ideas to share, with a significant amount of interesting content. It’s valuable to read non-sales books to broaden your horizons. The Current List 1. Wooden (the ultimate way to look at life and success…thank you Jared Katzman for introducing me to this)2. The Toyota Way (this is my all time favorite, though it’s not for everyone)3. How to Become CEO (Jeff Fox; an easy read packed with useful information, though he needs a new list of books to study…Webster’s dictionary?)4. How to Become a Great Boss (same as above)5. Double Your Profits in 6 Months or […]
- ["Guru" Books as Paperweights](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/02/guru-books-as-paperweights/): The clutter of sales process, sales prospecting and sales leadership books out there is overwhelming. Search Amazon for “sales training” books alone and you get 600 answers! They all seem to regurgitate the same old stuff. All the books I’ve read on prospecting (VITO, Prospecting for Dummies, Prospect Your Way To Sales Success, etc.) are a great read…to learn exactly what NOT to do and what is ineffective. “Mr. vice-president prospect, my company can deliver an 86% ROI in 3 weeks to you with our buzzword-compliant solution, just ask my references at American Express, who we give the solution to for […]
- [Why Stand Out From A Crowd? "Monkey Theory"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/2005/02/why-stand-out-from-a-crowd-monkey-theory/): Back in the internet days, I worked with a brilliant firm called C2LLC. Here, only minimally mangled (hopefully), is a story they used to explain one of their core philosophies on getting noticed in a crowded environment.Monkey Theory“In the early stages of our evolution, many of humans’ instincts and senses were tuned to hunting. For example, specifically, humans are extra sensitive to motion and contrast. See something move? Is there a brown path of fur mixed into the green leaves? It’s a monkey! Throw a spear at it! Bear with me here – what if monkeys actually WANTED you to hunt […]

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- [Thank You For Your Order](https://buildasalesmachine.com/intensive/thank-you/): Welcome! Congratulations on taking another step to creating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads and Predictable Revenue. Please read these directions carefully to get started… 1) How To Access The Clients-only “Cold Calling 2.0 Materials” Area This section of the website contains all kinds of tools and the “magic” email templates that have gotten 7-12% response rates consistently across all kinds of companies and industries. Just these email templates alone have created millions of dollars in revenue for my clients: https://buildasalesmachine.com/cold-calling-2-0-workshop-materials Password: “trust” You can download the success kit and any other tools from this area anytime you wish. 2) […]
- [Predictable Revenue Book Draft](https://buildasalesmachine.com/predictable-revenue-book-draft/): Download it with the Orange button here in the top right…
- [Webinar Details](https://buildasalesmachine.com/webinar-details/): Thank you for registering for the webinar “Triple Your Results With A Predictable Outbound Sales Machine”. Note: Please show up live, as it will NOT be recorded. Webinar Details: go ahead and add them to your calendar now… Thursday, February 17th 12pm PST / 3pm EST How To Join The Webinar On Thursday, at the correct time, go to this link to join the webinar: http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventID=17790726 These details have also been emailed to you.  If you don’t see them in your email, please check your spam and add us to your whitelist. More Free Training If you’d like to learn more […]
- [Free Webinar: "Triple Your Results With A Predictable, Outbound Sales Machine"](https://buildasalesmachine.com/webinar/): When you can predictably generate qualified sales leads, you can create predictable revenue.  This was a secret to our sustainable sales success at Salesforce.com (say that three times fast!) Marylou Tyler (a sales mentoring client of mine) and I are holding a free training webinar this Thursday on how to build a predictable, outbound sales machine and triple (or more) your results. From Marylou: “After years of fear, failure and rejection from cold calling, I have found a process that both produces results and is enjoyable to do.  The numbers we’re generating at one of my client sites is nothing short […]
- [Cold Calling 2.0 Starter Package](https://buildasalesmachine.com/intensive/): A Proven Step-By-Step System To Grow Revenue 40-100% AND Make It Predictable Want my ‘magic’ email templates (and more tools!) that helped generated $100 million in recurring revenue for Salesforce.com? If you are SERIOUS about investing in your growth, the Cold Calling 2.0 Starter Package combines my best material with a consultation to get you launched. It includes: My “Cold Calling 2.0 Success Kit” with email templates and other related tools that have made companies millions (Value $997) The live recordings and materials from a Cold Calling 2.0 Full Day Workshop (Value: $1,000) Digital copies of my upcoming “Predictable Revenue” book […]
- [Free Book Excerpt](https://buildasalesmachine.com/book/): Want a sneak peak of the upcoming “Predictable Revenue” book? Get a free excerpt here, courtesy of Marketo – thank you Jon Miller & Maria Pergolino! I will also share more preview material prior to publication.  The reviews below speak for the value of the content… Enter your email below so we can send it to you: Name Email Some sample comments from early reviewers… “I have read ‘Predictable Revenue’ and it’s Entrepreneurial Crack!” Damien Stevens, CEO, Servosity “I just finished reading your book. Unbelievable!  I now know what’s wrong with our sales process.” – Pat Shah, CEO, SurchSquad “FREAKING awesome stuff […]
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