Building the Never Ending Pipeline for Professional Service Firms

In late 2021 I did a virtual workshop with a professional services firm. In the audience were business development managers, a couple full time business development professionals, and a lot of aspiring associates. We were addressing an anticipated problem: rebuilding the opportunity pipeline. This is a version of that workshop, minus the exercises. I will […]

The Importance of Discovering Your Prospect’s Default Value Orientation

Here’s a concept to help your business development team. Make sure your customers think like you think they think. Put simply, know your buyer’s decision process, especially their default value orientation. The tendency is to assume your customers make decisions the same way you make decisions, that they share your same value orientation. Invest time confirming that your customers […]

Your Leadership Team’s Sales Metrics

The following is an excerpt from my book, “The Human Being’s Guide to Business Growth.” Leadership Sales Metrics It’s probably a good guess to say that your leadership team does not have sales metrics. And if your leadership team does have sales metrics, there’s a good chance they aren’t hitting them consistently. When I ask […]

Article: It’s Not You, It’s Me – Surviving Client Transitions

Article for Insightful Accountant, February 2019 “We’ve decided to hire another firm.” Are there scarier words in a service-driven business? Especially a CPA firm where clients can take years to decide to hire you in the first place. There are multiple issues that impact client retention, but today I want to focus on one. The transitioning of […]

Tactics for Managing Marketing and Sales Roles

Tactics for Managing Marketing and Sales Roles We need to cover what to do with your sales and marketing staff. They are the experts in developing new business and naturally resistant to any encroachment into their turf. The day you walk in and announce that everyone sells, their eyes will roll. It’s natural. They are […]

The Future of Sales

The Future of Sales The constant news cycle centered around AI and machine learning forces leaders to consider where to apply this new knowledge and capability. Do we work strictly with existing data? What about security? Can it make my forecasts more accurate? And, if the robots are coming, when will they replace those pesky […]

How to Become A Successful Sales Manager

How to Become A Successful Sales Manager Two sales managers are promoted. Both are given teams of the same size, producing similar results, and are instructed to increase results. Both managers are given the same annual budgets, the same support systems, and report to the same VP. A year in, the VP notices a small […]

Greg Chambers’ 5 Secrets to Sales Success

Greg Chambers’ 5 Secrets to Sales Success One of my children is graduating from college this spring and will be starting a new job in sales. In case he decides to ask me what I think it takes to be successful in sales, I have prepared this short primer on sales success. Father to son […]

The Downward Pressure of Information on Seller Commissions

The Downward Pressure of Information on Seller Commissions If you’re a fan of sales and selling, this New York Times article on airplane seller Steve Varsano, owner of The Jet Business, is a page turner. Selling Airborne Opulence to the Upper Upper Upper Class Selling airplanes has been one of my go-to analogies when describing […]

Send Me a Proposal – Working Through Price Negotiations

Send Me a Proposal – Working Through Price Negotiations I sit through sales presentations. Many of them. Sometimes it’s with a professional sales person in traditional selling appointments and other times it’s with senior executives and labeled business development, but in every case it’s a conversation about an exchange of dollars for products or services. […]