Frank Costantino

In a recent Voice of the Customer survey, I asked my customer’s customer, “Are the objectives of the relationship being met?” The very quick response was, “absolutely.” Somewhat skeptical, my next question was, “How do you know?”

As an Executive Sales Leader, do you recognize your role, have the tools and demonstrate the necessary behaviors to drive consistency across your organization? It isn’t difficult to be consistent; however, there are key ingredients that must be maintained to be successful.

Did you ever really sit down and review why you didn’t close a deal, win a contract, hit your forecast or achieve your annual sales target? I mean a truly introspective look at what you “thought” would happen versus what “actually” happened. I realize that we all admit that we learn from our mistakes, but do we really change our behaviors to expect different outcomes?

What does 'client ready' mean? We can all come up with our own definition of 'client ready.' Key words: polished; well thought out; proofed and prepped; your finest work. I think you get the point. So, what does it take to be client ready? Follow these six important steps.

While wins are certainly an important benchmark to track, let’s think more about the opposite metric — the time it takes to Lose.

In Strategic Selling, defect or failure results not from what you know, but about what you don’t know. The Titanic was not sunk by what they knew or could see. It was sunk by what they didn’t know or couldn’t see. So, it is of critical importance that we build diagnostic tools or “models” to help us discover what we don’t know about an opportunity or a client relationship.

All too often, I see salespeople waiting for someone else to check, analyze, review or inspect their work. What’s this all about? Do you really need someone else to watch over you to inform you that your pipeline is more like a pipe dream?

Earlier this year, my partners and I were asked to lead a panel discussion on this topic for an audience of 120 C-level executives. Our research, which includes direct client interactions, Voice of the Customer and Net Promoter Score surveys all indicate that INNOVATION is the #1 desire of end-user customers.

Is activity the real key performance indicator driving your sales teams to success? Let’s break it down. Here is the basic equation you should use to measure your pipeline effectiveness...

My meeting today is with Joe Minor. I don’t know Joe, except for the fact that he has elevated himself to chairman of an organization.