Powerful Questions

Aug, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

Powerful Questions

Abraham Maslow said in 1966: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

My observations when working with sales teams is that they know they need to ask questions, yet they have rarely thought a lot about their questions. While they may use some open-ended questions, most of their questions aim at getting information about the current state of the prospect. Without realizing it they have one tool and they are treating every question like a nail.

The outcome is simply this – few of the questions are powerful.

sales, sales habits, sales skills

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Jul, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

Powerful questions increase conversion rates

Landing great questions takes some practice

Anyone in a role where influencing matters most of the time or some of the time can drastically improve their communication effectiveness through improved question asking skills

Being in the business of sales and sales development, my role over the years has required that I wear many hats During a typical week I often wear the hat of sales leader, salesperson, trainer, coach,

competition, sales, sales skills, sales training

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Jun, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

Why I see training as the key ingredient to organic growth

No matter what your organic growth strategy is, having well-trained talent to support that strategy is a key ingredient.
Recently, I read a Harvard Article, How We Made our Sales Training More Effective by Making it Harder by Jeff Winters, it made me chuckle. So many companies view training as simply a box they need to check. It looks good if I give my team some training, or I’m expected to give them training, etc. Consequently, companies typically chose training that is easy for everyone involved.

sales habits, sales practice, sales skills, sales training, training effectiveness

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Jun, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

Continuous Improvement – Protecting Margin

Protecting margin is one of the key aspects of “perform” for a sales force.

Recently we were gaining insight into one of our customer’s sales goals. To do this we explored the current Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) they used to measure sales success. We then asked them to share how top performers were doing against the KPI’s.

What we heard was not as uncommon as you might think. The senior team shared that they were having challenges around defining their top performers. Why? There are several reasons top performers are mislabeled. In this case, it was one of the most common mistakes.

planning sales calls, sales, sales habits, sales skills, sales training

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Jun, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

Driving Organic Growth

Do you find your focus on current accounts at the cost of acquiring new ones?
On one hand, it’s good business to focus on customer retention. Studies cite that the cost of acquiring a new customer ranges from 5 to 25 times the cost of retaining a current customer.

competition, sales, sales skills, sales training

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May, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

The Sales Manager As Coach

How important is sales coaching to your team’s success?

Our results show that when the sales manager is actively involved in Momentium and reinforces what is learned, sales lift is increased and into the double digits

As it turns out, 74% of top performing companies say that sales coaching is the most important factor in sales enablement and readiness

And perhaps most importantly, 46% of sales representatives

planning sales calls, sales skills, sales training, sales workshops

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May, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

3 Ways to Avoid the Price Vortex

The price vortex is time-consuming. It is easier to do a strong job at the beginning of a selling process than find yourself spending it at the back end of the process trying to protect margin.

sales, sales habits, sales skills

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May, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

Design Thinking in Sales

Chances are when you see a current client or prospect you build trust and you get right into problem identification
Chances are you start asking questions that help you pinpoint what problems the customer has that you can solve with your product or service And you then present your product or solution when the first opportunity arises in the dialogue
Our research with thousands of Momentium users is that the

sales, sales skills, sales training

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Mar, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

Intangibles Create B2B Value

Pinpointing the intangibles that your customers value so much that they will pay a premium for them, requires a deep understanding of what your customer values At times the intangibles may be obvious and, at other times, hard to discern as they are subjective values

These subjective values are typically driven by the emotional drivers of the buyer or buyers or the organization What is it they are most keen

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Jan, 2018

By Marguerite Zimmerman

Outpacing Your Competitors

Incredible race comebacks capture your attention and are exhilarating to watch. And even more so, when it is your favorite team or player making a last minute unexpected “burst” to the finish line. The competitive arena in B2B sales is changing. There is an increasing number of companies that are using “new science” to outperform…

B2B sales, how to sell B2B

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Powerful Questions

Powerful questions increase conversion rates

Why I see training as the key ingredient to organic growth

Continuous Improvement – Protecting Margin

Driving Organic Growth

The Sales Manager As Coach

3 Ways to Avoid the Price Vortex

Design Thinking in Sales

Intangibles Create B2B Value

Outpacing Your Competitors

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