From the category archives:

Best Practices

Tell Them Your Story

March 7, 2012

Our Consulting Executives agree: most sales calls they’ve taken have turned out a poor use of time. Why? Digging deeper reveals a general issue often lost on sellers.
To be sure, sellers lacking product knowledge wasn’t the issue. Without exception, our Consulting Executives agreed that most sales professionals they’ve met with were enthusiastic and skilled in [...]

Good Elevator, Bad Elevator

November 17, 2011

Special guest post by Randall Yim, Executive Conversation Consulting Executive
I hate the term “elevator pitch”. It demeans an extremely valuable skill: the ability to articulate a complex statement clearly and succinctly.
Finding good and bad examples to critically review can be difficult. But the Washington Post recently conducted a reader’s poll contest to determine the best [...]

KISS: Keep It Simple, Smartly

November 7, 2011

Special guest post by Randall Yim, Executive Conversation Consulting Executive
We’re all enamored with the latest shiny new products and applications. Buzzy trends like smart infrastructure, smart cities and smart information abound. But high-tech is not a silver bullet. It’s also not always the best solution.
New technology has many attractions – including higher profit margins for [...]

Ten Key Elements of Successful Channel Programs

October 24, 2011

Special guest post by Scott Karren, Executive Conversation Consulting Executive
The success of your channel program hinges on a broad number of factors which, of course, vary considerably by industry and market. If you haven’t recently evaluated what’s working, what’s not in your program, take the time to do so. Here are 10 elements to specifically [...]

Can You Hear me [ONLY] Now?

October 12, 2011

Special guest post by Randall Yim, Executive Conversation Consulting Executive
I’m a news junkie. And look at all the new tools to help me:
Zite, Flipboard, Pulse, SkyGrid, Taptu, Fluent News, Flud and News360: Each gathers news according to my preferences then displays them in magazine-page, flippable style. More news apps show up almost daily.
And according to [...]

Can You Be Clearer?

July 28, 2011

Special guest post by Randall Yim, Executive Conversation Consulting Executive
How many times have you been in meetings where discussion degenerated into a series of clichés and acronyms? Within government accounts, where I’ve spent my career, it often seems that every agency and program is reduced to a 3-4 letter abbreviation. Code words disguise unpleasant [...]

3 Ways to Make Executive Sales Calls Less Intimidating

March 9, 2011

A sales leader at one of our clients recently expressed disappointment at all the excuses she hears on why her team doesn’t call higher in their accounts: “takes too much time,” “executives don’t want to talk to us,” “we just get referred down,” etc.
She then shared her suspicion of the real barrier: they’re intimidated.
Here’s [...]

How to Ask an Executive to Sponsor a Deal

February 28, 2011

You finally succeeded securing a meeting with a key customer executive. Now what? If you’re going to invest your time, and you’re asking the customer to do the same, then both of you better get a result.
Recognize that every executive engagement must have a clear objective. It does no good to have a meeting [...]

Challenge Your Prospects’ Perspectives

November 15, 2010

When was the last time you made your busy prospects really stop and think?
In this special guest post by friend and colleague Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies, she tackles a situational selling issues we’ve all encountered:  the importance of using provocation when a prospect’s perspective is limited to their [...]

Role Play to Prepare For Executive Engagements

March 31, 2010

Any meeting with a customer executive demands aligning with the executive’s business priorities, having meaningful ROI numbers at hand, and more.  However, you also need to be able to nimbly navigate the twists and turns that can unexpectedly arise during your face-to-face conversation. To be ready for conversational pitfalls that take you off message, add [...]

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