Jill Konrath

If you're planning on being at Dreamforce this year, I'll be speaking there. This event is huge. Last year 130,000+ people came from around the world. Put on by SalesForce.com, it is THE EVENT for people in the sales space. 

I'm speaking on Wednesday morning. Here are the details:

#1 Competitive Edge in Today's Sales World

• October 15th, 9 am PT (Wednesday)
• Marriott Marquis, Yerba Buena Salon 7

With today's escalating buyer expectations and ever-changing business environment, it's tough to stay at the top of your game. I kick off the session with a focus on the singular skill that virtually guarantees a successful career.

Constant change. As a seller, that's your life these days. New products and services. Changing market conditions. Evolving buyer expectations. New positions. Promotions.

To be successful, the new master skill for salespeople is rapid learning – of both skills and information. That's what I'm speaking about at lots of conferences these days.

Recently, I gave a talk at HubSpot's big INBOUND14 conference with over 10,000 attendees. Graphical notetaker Kelly Kingman drew up my speech. It starts and ends with elephants. And, there's a ton of good info in-between. 

If you’ve struggled with some ups and downs in your sales results, check out my recent interview with Colleen Francis. She’s the author of >Nonstop Sales Boom as well as a highly respected colleague.

In our conversations, she shares some insightful ideas that are guaranteed to get you thinking.

JILL: Why did you decide to write Nonstop Sales Boom now?

COLLEEN FRANCIS: Over the last years, I’ve seen an increasing trend that is impacting most businesses I work with. Time and time again, prospects and clients will say to me, “We don’t need you or any consulting help. We’re having our best month or best quarter ever.”

Of course I’m happy for their success. But all too often, a quarter or two later, we speak again and they say, “Now we’re having our worst quarter ever, can you help us?” They’re struggling but they didn’t see it coming and couldn’t prevent it.

Have you ever heard the phrase "detach from the outcome"? It’s a tenet of Eastern religions. For many years it was a concept that I found totally unfathomable. After all, sales itself is about outcomes. Our income is at risk. We need to get the business.

But over the years, I’ve learned the wisdom of that message. In fact, the more I wanted to close a sale (or should I say – needed to close a sale) the less likely I was to get it.

Why? Because my focus was on me, not my prospect. And, whenever you need something that much, you push too hard for it. You short-circuit the process and go for the close before the time is right and your prospect is ready.

There's no way around it. Email has to be a core part of your prospecting strategy. Decision makers rarely answer the phone and seldom get back to you when you leave a message. But with the overwhelming amount of information flooding inboxes today, every single word in your email to a decision maker has to be carefully thought out.

Most of the salespeople I talk to really struggle with "what to say" in a prospecting email. Below is an example of a typical (bad) prospecting email I regularly receive from salespeople.

I know the guy was trying hard to get business, but all he got from me was a big DELETE. And, truth be told, he doesn't have a clue that he blew it because he worked so darn hard to craft the perfect message.

Check it out, then use my Email Message Evaluator to find out if your prospecting emails are up to the mark.

It’s so easy for us to get stuck in our ways and only think of incremental changes to what we’re currently doing. But to be effective today, we need fresh sales strategies – and those only come when you start asking yourself different questions.

Here’s a challenge to get you to expand your thinking: What would you do if your company decided to raise prices across the board – by 20%? You’ve got six months before this goes into affect, and you don’t have an option to quit your job.

We've been told for an eternity that sales is a numbers game. And it's still a popular belief today.

The theory is that all we need to do if we want to be successful in this business is to call, call, call. If we do that, we'll fill our pipeline with a gazillion suspects, who'll turn into X number of prospects, opportunities, and ultimately, customers.

We've been lead to believe that going after all those prospects is essential to our success. But what if it isn't?

I'm serious. What if trying to work all those prospects contaminates our thinking and causes us to behave badly? What if we could generate more sales with fewer prospects?

Don't miss this FREE, but invaluable session!

With all the data out there, a big challenge for today's sales and marketing teams is knowing what to pay attention to. Our customers and prospects are overwhelmed as well. Yet to be effective, we need to cut through all this "noise" to connect with them. 

In this 1-hour webinar with me & Joe Lucas (smart guy from InsideView), you'll discover how to:

Looking for a new sales job right now? According to research by Glassdoor, 45% of salespeople plan to start their search in the next three months and 68% want to switch in the upcoming year.

Wowza! That's a whopping number of you who are open to new opportunities. It also means you'll probably have tons of competition for any good position you find.

How do you stand out from the crowd?

Sales leaders are looking to hire self-starters. Of course, every salesperson describes him/herself that way ... but very few demonstrate it during the interview process. If you can, there's a high likelihood you'll move yourself into the front runner position.

Are you at the cusp of something new? Perhaps you've taken a new sales position. Maybe you're selling into new markets or to new buyers. You could be launching a new product or service. You might be responsible for onboarding a new rep.

Or just maybe you've finally realized that you're doomed unless you figure out how to deal with today's savvy, frazzled, sales-averse decision makers.

What's common between all those scenarios? You – or your new reps – are thrown into learning mode again.

You're overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of the task. You're not sure you'll ever figure it out. But here's the deal: to make that happen, you need to take control of your learning. It can't be done in bits and pieces, with no rhyme or reason on what you're learning first.