I WILL Expand and Qualify My Sales Pipeline

By: Lisa M. Chapman

It’s no mystery… the more you have in your pipeline, the better the chances of making a sale. In many ways, sales is no more than a numbers game; however, as our environments become more competitive and decision making becomes more complex,  the game changes.  Now, the quality of those numbers (leads, opportunities, etc.) plays a major role in our success.

The funnel / pipeline concept is fairly straight forward. We start out with a number of leads and as we progress through the sales process some of those leads with ultimately result in closed sales, while others will slowly dwindle out at different stages of the process for a variety of reasons. As such, we get a funnel shape with many things going into the top, and fewer coming out at the bottom.

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I will focus on decision makers - New Year's Checklist!

By: Carl Schwartz, Senior Partner, The Chapman Group

According to The Sales Executive Council, an organization that provides sales and sales management best practices research, the core incompetence of most sales representative is that they don’t understand drivers of deal success; they don’t ask the right questions or obtain the correct information from customers; and they are reluctant to walk away from any deal once in motion.

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Creating and Validating our Value Proposition

By: John Cangiano, Senior Partner, The Chapman Group

I know I should not do this, but for the sake of this article let’s make an assumption that we do believe we deliver value.  Most sales people believe that they bring value to their customer.  The fact is that we may believe we are delivering value but if the customer or prospect does not perceive it as value – the truth is that no value has been delivered.  Even if we do deliver a strong value proposition; unless it is validated at the appropriate levels in the account, there will be no perception or buy-in of value. 

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I Will Keep and Grow My Most Critical Accounts

By: Denny Chapman Jr., Consultant, The Chapman Group 

Right here, let’s make a new year’s resolution together to work smarter, not harder in 2006. And what is smarter than keeping and growing the customers that you have already worked so hard to acquire. Inside of these accounts you have already spent an enormous amount of time developing relationships, providing value (hopefully validated the value too), and solving problems. In order to effectively retain and develop these most critical of customers I have a simple activity that you can perform with them that will provide you (the account manager) with strong leverage and priceless results…Talk to these customers and ask them questions about their experience with you and your organization.

Since you know these customers better then most, it is imperative that you ask questions that dive deeper into relationship and focuses on the following 7 areas:

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I Will Focus My Efforts and Optimize My Time Spent on “Hi-Value Activities”!   

By: Dennis J. Chapman Sr. President and CEO, The Chapman Group

Focus

1.     Main emphasis: concentrated effort or attention on a particular thing -    The committee’s focus must be on finding solutions to the problem

2.    (plural fo·cus·es) area of concern: an area of concern, responsibility, or investigation

3.    Concentrated quality: a concentrated and unified quality to bring focus to the problem

4.    Sharpness of image: the quality of being sharply defined with clear edges and contrast

5.    Seeing sharply: the condition of seeing sharply and clearly

Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2005. © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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I Will Target Exceeding My Sales Plan by 25%

By: Al Sneddon, Senior Consultant, The Chapman Group

As we reach the end of 2005, we should have begun the planning process for 2006. Have you defined your goals and objectives? What strategies are you employing to insure that your goals are achieved in this New Year? Are you one of the elite salespeople who plan to exceed your sales plan by 25%? Hoping that you will accomplish this goal is not a strategy, it is a wish. So how do we plan to accomplish being 25% over target?

The key to exceeding your plan by 25% is to PLAN YOUR SUCCESS. There are 3 key factors in this equation;

1.      Plan your revenue targets daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly

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     Issue XX      January 24, 2006