Winning and Losing in Sales

In February, I sat down with Rob Jolles on the Pocket Sized Pep talk Podcast.   In the interview, we discussed lessons learned in my twenty-seven-year career leading sales teams and line of business operations.   I learned from both winning and losing in sales.

We discussed why so few enterprise sales reps make their quota in the first year.   I shared some of my best practices for hiring top sales reps.   I discussed how The Reference Selling Model will make reps more productive in their first year.   The idea is to quickly learn what made customers successful and help others do the same.

Referrals are the cheapest way to build sales pipeline.   Companies get referrals by selling to the right customers and making those customers successful.  Successful customers want to share their success with others.

We also discussed why building a big pipeline is so crucial.  If you don’t have a 3X pipeline, you can’t afford to make any mistakes or have bad luck.

I shared what I learned from some of my mentors, including Eric Mann and Tom Mendoza.   From Eric, I learned how to build trust and motivate enterprise sales reps.   From Tom, I learned how to build a culture of recognition.