Growth Dynamics Get Down

Symptoms:

Having earned a small commission check last month from her sales job, Marta was doing her best to replace her old refrigerator and had already hit the local appliance stores, as well as a few of the Big Box outlets.

Symptoms:

Like many business development people these days, Robin won't be going on her appointments tomorrow by herself. This time she is bringing Rich, and he is the VP of Sales from one of her largest vendors.

Symptoms:

Justin was spending some time off around the holidays thinking about his 25 years in sales. There were many things to be proud of, but after a bit of soul searching, he was forced to admit that he thought he'd be a bit further along financially by now or perhaps have a more prestigious title or even work for a better company, considering the two and a half decades he was reflecting on. 

Symptoms:

Chris is concerned about his sales team. They are active, they are selling, and sales are up but margins are way down. The business model allows reps to be flexible in the field and sell at the prices they feel appropriate. But something is missing, and Chris is unsure how to help his field reps get more margin. He doesn't want to kill the ability of his reps to set pricing in the field, but doesn't know what information they need in order to be better at the task.

Symptoms:

Charlie had been working with a long-time client and just can’t believe why some meetings could really get under his skin. Charlie left angry with this client’s attitude towards him, the ability to waste time like it was nothing and at times complete disrespect for Charlie and his process. Yet, this client was important to Charlie’s success each year and he was unable to fire them. He opened his stamp book and added a nice bright red anger stamp on this client’s page after the last meeting he had.

Symptoms:

Elizabeth had just gotten the call every sales person hopes for each day. A target account in her territory reached out and asked that she come right away to help them with a big problem. Knowing her technical expertise could be very valuable in this situation, Elizabeth felt sure that winning the project was just a matter of not making a fatal mistake. Her competitive fires were stoked and her confidence at an all-time high as she made the appointment to be there three days later. Despite the repeated requests for her to drop everything else she had going, Elizabeth held firm and kept the date she asked for at the outset of the conversation. She had seen this movie before so this time she was determined to keep her emotions under control and the prospect on a leash instead of rushing head long into another disappointment.

Symptoms:

Mary was on one of her first sales calls as a new rep and the prospect, with his first question, invited her straight onto the Buyers Bus: "Tell me about your company and what you do". As is typical, she proceeded to talk about the long and successful history of her company, then described the numerous accounts they had helped, and then went for a strong finish by stating how confident she was that her extensive line of products would find a good fit somewhere within the prospects business needs.