Productive Insights

The short answer based on the resurgence we saw in 2022 from our own clients is “Yes.” A more thoughtful—and useful—answer is “Yes, but is a calling campaign right for my business?” Have you ever tried to get new business by “cold calling” prospects on the phone? What about calling customers to see about their current or future needs? Or

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To increase revenue and build your business in 2023 ask the “twelve questions of selling.” Creating value for your customers, prospects, and colleagues is perhaps the best business gift you can give them. A particular set of business development and communication skills is the key. Do you and your team have them? This time of year giving and receiving command

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Highly productive networking, for one thing. But exactly how does that work? Here are some answers, an unusual opportunity to put them to work—and just in time for the holidays, too. The holidays are already on the horizon, and they offer many business and social opportunities for productive networking. Our recommended mantra—”Give Before You Get”—is in tune with the season.

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What’s your number-one sales challenge? What obstacle, if you overcame it, would most help you increase sales? We ask that question when we survey participants before the first session of our consultative sales training course, FOCIS®. The survey helps us understand how to tailor the course to the needs of any given company, class, or business developer. Specifically, the survey helps

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Killer proposals aren’t born. They’re made. And here’s how. Good Discovery, Good Proposal. An effective proposal starts with effective discovery. What does that mean? You need to spend enough time asking the questions that will help you know how to provide the best solution for your prospect. You cannot provide a specific, unique solution unless you perform discovery that identifies specific

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Yes, consultative selling can be a great approach to producing business-to-business revenue. But it can also be a lot more. Here are some ideas on how to make it work for you in other areas of your life, too. Over the nearly thirty years we’ve been teaching consultative selling to sales reps, executives, and professionals we’ve been surprised at the many

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We do. Or at least we can help you figure it out, and now we have a new way to help you fix it. Many big challenges in life can be broken down into separate problems with separate solutions. In our experience, tough sales challenges can be met in the same way. We know that’s true because for nearly 30 years

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Do you earn the right to close? We find that probably 75 percent of salespeople and other business developers do not. They may think they do because they show up, ask a few “probing” questions, and make presentations—often elaborate ones—as if to say, “I’m here. Isn’t that enough?” Showing up is of course essential—in fact, one rule of thumb people like

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Research, analysis, number-crunching, decision trees—these are a few of the traditional components of strategic planning. But we’re just now learning about how powerful a little understood, new-kid-on-the-block component can be. Why do some strategic issues stick around too long and how can this new kid on the block help to cut them loose? Usually, key executives and managers know what they

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Oh, yes, here it comes. But this one is different: It’s about golf! We are often hired to train a company’s new business developersin consultative selling skills and to develop customized sales processes to get them up to speed as quickly as possible. And we love doing it. But sometimes companies ask us to wait to train their current sales team

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