How Do Top Salespeople Build More Business Faster?

April 18, 2025
Terry Franke

Do you rate your ability as a business developer as high as you rate your skill in your area of expertise?

If not, you’re probably not reaching your potential for successfully landing new clients and expanding your business with current clients. You need to improve your “batting average.” You can be making more sales to clients and prospects alike.

How do top salespeople build more business faster? They behave in specific ways that other salespeople do not. The idea behind their success is really that simple. But putting it into practice is more challenging.

That’s where we come in. Our FOCIS® consultative selling program teaches the behaviors and persuasive selling skills the very best salespeople use to stay on top. FOCIS® can improve selling skills, shorten the time it takes to make a sale, improve client satisfaction, and build a highly productive sales process.

The four-session program comprises 16 hours of workshops over approximately three months. Consulting between sessions is included to help ensure that your new selling knowledge transfers to your day-to-day selling experiences.

I am offering a special price for Travelers Partner Agents of 25 percent off the standard cost of the FOCIS® program. The first session will be Tuesday, July 14, from 8 a.m. to noon at our offices in Northfield, Illinois. The course is highly interactive and limited to 12 participants. Your special price for four sessions is $3,000, instead of the standard $4,000. We’re sure you’ll find that to be pennies compared to the sales growth and success that learning and using FOCIS® can bring you.

To register or just to learn more about how FOCIS® can benefit you and your organization, please contact me at 847-446-0008 Ext. 7 or at tfranke@productivestrategies.com. Additional information is also available at www.productivestrategies.com/sales-training.cfm.

Our company, Productive Strategies, Inc., focuses on sales and marketing and has been accelerating business revenue growth for our client companies for 16 years in a variety of industries, including insurance. We look forward to helping you accelerate your revenue growth as well.

The Shot! And the Importance of Discovery

By Phil Krone, President • April 28, 2025
Asking the questions that give you the confidence you need to win in sales. 

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By Phil Krone, President • March 22, 2025
This faith-based not-for-profit achieves 40 percent year-over-year growth for 17 years by applying well-known business principles, one in particular. Why can so few businesses even dream of such growth?

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Small Assignment, Big Impact

By By Phil Krone, President • January 17, 2025
Last year after a talk I gave at the Small Business Expo on Business to Business Selling (B2B) , a woman asked for my card because she wanted to meet to tell me about her business and learn more about mine. When we eventually got together she shared that her start-up company’s goal was to console consumers who had suffered the loss of a loved one directly, as she had. But my talk had inspired a new idea: assist funeral homes to improve their services by showing more empathy to their customers who were struggling as she was. I sensed that my talk gave her confidence that, despite the challenges, her business could succeed. What I didn’t realize was that this small assignment for a start-up would eventually have such a big impact on her business as well as an industry. 

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Five: Vision Sets the Course

By Phillip Krone • December 18, 2024
To date we have covered the Sales, Information, Tactical, and Marketing Plan Levels. Although the fifth level is the last to be discussed, it is often what sets a business in motion when it is founded. Today we will illustrate marketing to support a vision by discussing two very successful businesses.

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Four: Planning the Work, Working the Plan

By By Phil Krone, President • December 5, 2024
As a reminder, the Five Levels of Marketing are (1) Sales, (2) Information/Data/Analytics, (3) Tactical or Campaign, (4) Marketing or Program, and (5) Vision/Strategic. We’ve explored each of the first three levels in separate columns in August, September, and October. They are available on our website's Productive Insights collection.

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Three: Tactical Sales Campaigns in the Field

By By Phil Krone, President • October 16, 2024
Using intelligence from prior levels leads to revenue-building sales campaigns on the ground in real time.

The Five Levels of Marketing - Level Two: Putting Data and Information to Work

By Phil Krone, President • September 16, 2024
Tracking key types of data each month provides insights that can build a highly productive marketing plan.

The Five Levels of Marketing

By Phil Krone, President • August 14, 2024
The Five Levels - Sales: Prospecting, qualifying, discovery, presentation, demonstration, proposal writing and closing; Information/Data/Analytics; Tactical or Campaign; Marketing or Program; Vision/Strategic

The Question That Leads to a Positive Decision (The Texas Hospital Story)

By Phil Krone, President • July 18, 2024
If you believe you have ADHD, you can be more successful by scheduling fewer first meetings and spending that time on more second and third meetings with qualified prospects. For our client, that meant cancelling half the medical CFO conventions his sales rep was planning to attend and investing more time following up with the CFO prospects he had already met. When your discovery is not productive, step back and restart at the point the discussion began to be about whose system is better. That’s an argument you are not going to win. Don’t waste years in prospect meetings in which you ask the same questions every time and get the same answers. Either decide that your product or service isn’t right for this prospect and move on—or broaden your discovery to find a need behind the need. In this hospital case, the hidden need was a fear that because no outside vendors had audited their system they might be in violation of regulations that an outsider would spot right away.
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