Thoughts on Selling - Value Selling, Sales Leadership, Sales Enablement Insights

In this episode of the Thoughts on Selling podcast, we sit down with Deb Berman, an experienced sales consultant specializing in assisting early-stage tech startups, and a fellow Colgate alum! Join us as she shares her insights on building successful sales organizations, navigating the transition from startup employee to consultant, and the key elements for effective B2B sales. Discussion Highligh...

Nancy Maluso, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Edgio and I take a deep dive into the power of curiosity and authenticity in the customer engagement process, and the practices of value selling to ensure positive outcomes for all. Nancy and I cover the practices that allow a good sales person to drive great results. Key takeaways:  - High performing sales people don’t provide information abou...

Jonathan Mahon, cofounder of The Practice Lab and I take a deep dive into the value of discovery in the sales process, and the application of “deliberate practice” to improve selling skills.  While some believe that discovery “belongs” in a discrete stage of the sales process, and is sometimes delegated to a presales engineer, Jonathan and I share a different perspective. Discovery should start lo...

Special guest Mark Goloboy brings an extensive background in both large and small companies driving demand using data, analytics, process improvement and elbow grease. Together we nerd out on the value of data and shared goals to help drive pipeline size and shape. We also dig into the processes that help to ensure success. Some companies play the blame game ( it’s your fault, no yours!) while oth...

The purpose of a sales enablement charter is to define sales enablement, the sales enablement group mission, its focus, how it measures success, the key stakeholders and internal customers. It sets the boundaries of what the group will do and importantly, what the group will not or should not do. The charter is a tool to help communicate what others should and should not expect from the sales enab...

Senior sales leadership (and Wall Street analysts) talk a lot about strategic accounts. Of course, that’s where the money is, and more importantly that’s where the profit is. While your top tier of customers may generate 60 or 80% of your revenue, they will generate all of your company’s profits. Strategic accounts spend more, they are customers longer, and make specific long-lasting platform, tec...

While most people think of opportunity reviews as a necessary evil to build pipeline visibility, effective opportunity review sessions serve as a critical planning process to ensure timely deal closings. Yes…a planning process. Good opportunity reviews identify unknown unknowns and action plans that dramatically boost close rates. And a good platform for capturing those relationship maps and actio...

I've been deeply involved in account planning process development, improvement and facilitation for many years and have seen the strong positive impact on value creation, customer satisfaction and loyalty and revenue. Here are a few lessons learned along the way: Account planning, as the basis for account based selling, is vastly different from writing an account plan Effective preparation helps t...

Special guest Jonathan Levitt answers the question “why do we choose to do hard things?”, like running an ultramarathon or selling corporate wellness services (blood analytics) to government agencies. As the top sales person at InsideTracker , a blood analytics company, Jonathan moved from ambassador program management, influencer development and direct-to-consumer sales to a focus on enterprise a...

Join me for a discussion in how to study, measure and improve sales productivity. Sales productivity is the intersection of sales effectiveness, efficiency and revenue, and is the backbone of a growing and profitable organization. Here are some highlights: Sales enablement is one of the five levers of sales productivity and is the glue that sticks all of the others together. While content is a com...

Episode Summary Is your CRM just a graveyard for contact info? In this episode of Thoughts on Selling , Lee Levitt sits down with Ulrik Monberg , CEO of ARPEDIO , to solve a problem plaguing sales teams: Why do "Account Plans" end up as static documents stuck in a drawer? Ulrik identified that most tools store data but fail to guide behavior. He built ARPEDIO to bridge this gap. We discu...

Special guest ⁠ Laurie Schloff and I discuss the value of effective communication in the selling realm. This episode will help you to become a better communicator, and to help your team communicate better as well! Good communicators are able to motivate their prospects more effectively than weak communicators, and most of selling involves helping others to see different ways of being, to lower the...

Special guest ⁠ Jackie Quint and I discuss the value of customer success as a key to revenue generation and why smart AEs partner with CSMs to win more deals and help customers achieve their strategic goals! Too much of selling focuses on the hero's journey of bringing in new logos and undervalues the shorter-cycle, lower-cost, higher-win-rate sale to existing customers. Jackie, with her experienc...

Special guest ⁠Christine McKay and I discuss how to get the most from a sales engagement, starting with a value selling mindset —  understanding requirements, aligning with the customer’s business goals and demonstrating value. Christine, as an experienced sales negotiator, outlines how most organizations leave value on the table and assume additional costs in virtually every deal. While sales peo...

Special guest ⁠ Kevin Dixon ⁠ and I discuss a key factor in value selling — understanding the participants on the buying team, mapping the relationships and dynamics and coming up with a plan to address their individual and group care-abouts. Kevin is a long term sales exec turned company founder, who has brought a powerful tool to the market. Boxxstep provides the capability to map relationships,...

Special guest ⁠ Meagan Davis and I discuss the essence of sales enablement and how it’s similar to long distance running — you have to prepare, set a project plan, to train, be ready for speed bumps, broken shoe laces, SMEs that don’t show up or other anticipated/surprising events that may impede your ability to succeed.  Meagan recently published How to Start a Sales Enablement Program , availabl...

Special guest Tammi Warfield and I discuss the full customer buying relationship versus the much more limited traditional selling approach. Tammi has held senior leadership roles at Microsoft, BMC, Delphix and more, where she owned the customer relationship process and business practices across the entire lifecycle. She's carried a bag and, generously, she has many lessons to share. She also happe...

Stefanie Boyer, Ph. D is an author, TEDx and keynote speaker, sales trainer and named Forbes Next 1,000. Stefanie speaks and writes about how businesses can create growth while keeping their teams happy and loyal. Cited by AMA as the Sales Professor of the Year and recognized as a sales innovation expert, Dr. Boyer runs the sales program at Bryant University and is co-founder of RNMKRS, a technolo...

Lisa Skillern brings a special blend of process expertise in sales enablement and domain expertise in security. Her stakeholders love her; her sales teams count on her. She has carried a bag and run marketing. She has driven revenue and sales productivity in both large and small organizations. When we needed an enablement pro to drive global sales enablement for the security portfolio at Google, s...

Liz Pulice brings a special blend of hands-on experience and executive leadership skills. She has many years of go-to-market strategy, operations and revenue and sales enablement activities. She's carried a bag and run operations. She is a fellow founding member of the ⁠⁠ Sales Enablement Society ⁠⁠, and a sought after industry speaker Liz focuses on operational excellence, aligning with strategy...

Roderick Jefferson brings a special blend of hands-on experience, including carrying a bag early in his career, and managing training, sales productivity and global sales enablement over the past 20+ years. He is a fellow founding member of the Sales Enablement Society . He is a frequent keynote speaker and published author ⁠ . Join our conversation on sales enablement -- how we define it, how the...

Heather Margolis brings a special, deep knowledge of channel marketing, channel management and channel enablement. We first met more than fifteen years ago to discuss the sales enablement market and emerging technology vendors. Along with indirect sales channels, we share a love of cars, the outdoors, and New England. In this episode Heather and I share a small slice of our ongoing conversation ab...

Marina Devalia, founder of Playbook Lab , has a passion for marketing...and not just marketing, but the key issue of marketing and sales alignment. She is a member of the ⁠ Sales Enablement Society ⁠ and has spent many years in senior marketing management roles. Check her LinkedIn ⁠ profile ⁠ for all the highlights and details! In this episode Marina and I dive into the issue of marketing and sale...

Matt Cohen is one of those special people who have a strategic perspective, strong implementation experience and an ability to get things done. He recently joined Dotmatics to build out the sales enablement function. He is a current board member of the Boston Chapter of the Sales Enablement Society and spent three years at Seismic in enablement (isn't that redundant? ). Check his LinkedIn profile...

Kevin Onarecker has been in sales and sales management for the past thirty years and brings many lessons learned to the conversation. In this episode Kevin and I talk about the most important attributes for a sales person and how to instill and develop those attributes. Curious about the attributes? Okay...curiosity is the first. Business acumen is the second. Can these be learned? Sure! Do they n...