Partner recruitment is the foundation of a successful channel sales program. Without being able to identify and recruit the right partners and provide a value proposition to the decision makers at the VAR, you will be setting yourself and your company up for failure. Follow a set of real world examples of recruiting partners and structuring them correctly for the maximum impact.
If you run a channel team and are looking for a solid written process for retaining revenue producing partners, or if you are a Territory Manager tasked with finding …

Most of the businesses in the United States earn the majority of their revenue by selling to existing clients.  While that’s a component in the overall success and profitability of a business it is critically important to prospect and develop business relationships with new clients on a consistent basis.  Here are eight tried and true tips to help you improve your prospecting skills:

Schedule time for prospecting every day: Salespeople should schedule a minimum of one-hour per day dedicated to prospecting or new business development …

There are a few different online meeting planning applications available. I choose WebEx because they have proven to be the easiest to use. From scheduling online meetings on WebEx to conducting a presentation or training online for 2-20 people, I have never had any issues. WebEx is the easiest platform to use for sales teams.

WebEx meetings are a quick and efficient way of providing information to people that could be located in one office or spread across the entire world. As long as you have an internet connection, you can …

I am a traditionalist when it comes to sales. I’m far from old school but I have become fairly set in my ways on what technology is best and works most often. Every now and then I get a little geeky and try out something new. This week the new tool I started using was Skype. Skype is software that enables the world’s conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people …

I had an interesting discussion with a man today that owns his own software and services company. He would fit into that midsize area with only 180 employees. With the revenue that he explained to me that they were pulling in, it was pretty clear that the current economy wasn’t doing to much damage to his business (if he was telling the truth). He said something on the call that got me thinking. He was explaining to me that his large sales team produces the revenue for the company. The …

Make the sales process a collaborative one and you’ll find yourself in the position of trusted advisor instead of just another company trying to make a sale.

One of the most difficult and feared situations in selling is getting hit with hard to answer questions early in the sales process. Questions such as: “Why should I buy from you?” and “What makes your product better than your competitor’s?” For most salespeople these questions are an irresistible invitation for what I refer to as the “Presentation Trap,” an open invitation from the …

You’ve probably heard the story of the golfer who steps up to the tee box and hits a wicked duck hook out of bounds.
Embarrassed, he reaches in his pocket, tees up another ball and again, hits another horrific twisting shot left out of bounds. Now angry and determined, he walks back to his bag, gets another ball, tees it up again, and duplicates his first two shots out of bounds to the left. In a fit of frustration, he slams his club into his bag, aggressively flings his club over …

Avoid Getting Your E-mails Deleted

From the E-Business Newsletter
It’s easy to fall into bad e-mailing habits because the whole format can begin to feel casual. By now everyone knows to avoid writing in all caps and using emoticons, but people often make the mistake of shooting off overly chummy professional e-mails and forming a devil-may-care disregard for grammar and punctuation. Simple rule of thumb: treat e-mail the same way you’d treat phoning someone. Get to the point, but be polite about it. Here is a look at some of the subtler …

It came to me at a peculiar time. I am a sales trainer and I was training sales people. In a moment of uninspired accidental brilliance (that’s an enormous exaggeration) I said something that made all the sense in world, but was completely contradictory in nature.

“My ultimate goal for you,” I said to a roomful of seasoned professional sales people “is to completely remove the concept of ‘selling’ from who you are and what you do.” But wait a minute…..I’m a sales trainer…..a SALES trainer….and these are sales people…….SALES people……..and …

Why it’s time to rethink one of the most derided marketing tactics.
Most marketing pros would say that Samantha Ettus is going about it all wrong. That’s because the CEO of Ettus Media Management, a New York City public relations and branding agency, spends a big chunk of her time working the phones, pitching herself and her clients to people she’s never met.

According to the conventional wisdom, that’s a big waste of time. Cold calling, the experts agree, is annoying and irritating, an unwanted imposition on busy people. What’s more, they …

You’ve got just eight short seconds to grab your prospect’s attention and land an executive sales appointment. This sales expert shows you how.
By Tony Parinello

Before you pick up the phone to make a sales call to an executive, I’d like to suggest you remember the following true story:
A few months ago, one of my salespeople, Daniel, had some car problems, so I offered to give him a ride to work. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to do a little one-on-one role-playing, I suggested we go over some appointment-setting …