As you can imagine, being the newest member of the SALESWORKS team, the learning curve here is exponential.  Lucky, I have some talented teachers.  My first endeavor is writing effective online sales copy.

Effective sales copy is pulse of your website.

Your sales copy must evoke an emotion in the reader and compel them to take action.  This can be accomplished through addressing the following: Continue Reading…

Increasingly, organizations are distancing themselves from software and implementation vendors during their business application software (ERP/CRM) selection processes in an effort to maintain (the illusion) of control; an approach that more often than not increases, rather than decreases, project risk.

There is a mistaken belief within procurement circles that Continue Reading…

Gone are the days when a common response to a technical support call is “are you sure that your computer is plugged in?”  Dynamics Partner support teams are now faced with a myriad of complex questions that require an understanding of networks, communications, databases and functional areas like accounting, sales and marketing.  But perhaps the biggest challenge of all is the human factor.  The people at the other end of the phone line are rarely happy, sometimes abusive and often stressed.   Certain times are worse than others – month end, year end and first thing in the morning (they were working late trying to get things done, were foiled and then built up a head of steam all night!)

There are some steps and techniques that can assist customer support people in managing stressed customers over the phone – no matter what the time of day or nature of the incident. Continue Reading…

Over the last two quarters, most Microsoft Dynamics Partners have seen IT investments postponed, capital expenditures reconsidered and funded projects reprioritized.  However, new opportunities are still being identified, albeit at a slower rate than at this time last year.

Partners have not seen projects cancelled.

As a result, many Partners have extremely large pipelines full of “on hold” projects.  Successful Sales Managers will find a way to unplug these sales pipelines over the next couple of months, in time to close them by the end of June.

We recommend a three step process to do this. Continue Reading…

Throughout every sale, there comes a moment when the prospective customer makes a decision to buy from you. It can happen anytime from the first phone conversation at the very beginning of the process through to your final negotiation. Regardless of when it happens, most partners don’t recognize when the event has occurred, and most don’t make an effort to influence its development. Before we talk about the “Diagnostic”, we should spend a few moments on what this “Tipping Point” really is.

Most ERP and CRM prospects are looking for Continue Reading…

Sales managers (as well as introspective/paranoid sales professionals) are always looking for models to measure both the maturity and future potential of individual contributors.

Whether you are separating fact from fiction during a hiring campaign or simply culling the herd, behavioral competencies should be weighted as strongly as historical economic contribution.

Sadly, past performance is not the end-all indicator of future success we believe it to be.

Over the past few years ERP & CRM solutions have stabilized while customer buying behavior has evolved. Combined, these shifts drive the absolute need for a more mature engagement model; one that many of today’s existing sales professionals don’t know how to execute. Continue Reading…

It is an absolute given that your organization needs to be GAAP-compliant. No company ignores Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, at least not for long, and not without penalty. The same is true of Sales. So, is your company GASP-compliant? If not, you’re losing potential revenue. Continue Reading…

Hiring an effective sales professional can be an onerous process, but bear in mind its purpose: to provide ample opportunity for those “Marginal Sales Candidates” to show themselves prior to you hiring them.

A Marginal Sales Candidate can cost your business up to $790,000:

• $60k to $90k in salary and costs before you end up letting them go and starting the hiring process over
• $700k average in lost sales opportunities over the 9-12 months you keep that poor performer

We’ve created the SALESWORKS Guide to Hiring Sales Professionals to save you those costs as well as the wasted time and effort spent hiring and firing Marginal Sales Candidates. Continue Reading…

Sales cycles have binary outcomes; win or lose, profit or loss, growth or contraction, celebration or regret.

As large enterprise ERP and CRM publishers and partners aggressively pursue mid-market opportunities to shore up declining revenue streams; sales strategy and methodology execution will increasingly determine who triumphs in this last remaining business application battleground.

Old school feature/function, show up and throw up, “lead with the product” selling will no longer carry the day and VARs that are unable to penetrate the executive suite, add meaningful value throughout the selection process, and deliver measurable benefits to the customer will have to rely upon discounting to remain even marginally competitive. Continue Reading…