Sales Pipeline Quotes

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. —Dale Carnegie

There is no easy button in sales. Prospecting is hard, emotionally draining work, and it is the price you have to pay to earn a high income.

mediocrity is like a broke uncle. Once he moves into your house, it is nearly impossible to get him to leave.

Here is the brutal reality. If you don't have a plan, you will become a part of someone else's plan. You can either take control of your life or someone else will use you to enhance theirs. It's your choice.

The 30-Day Rule states that the prospecting you do in this 30-day period will pay off for the next 90 days. It is a simple, yet powerful universal rule that governs sales and you ignore it at your peril. When you internalize this rule, it will drive you to never put prospecting aside for another day. The implication of the 30-Day Rule is simple. Miss a day of prospecting and it will tend to bite you sometime in the next 90 days. Miss a week and you will feel it in your commission check. Miss the entire month and you will tank your pipeline, fall into a slump, and wake up 90 days later desperate, feeling like a loser, with no clue how you ended up there.

The enduring mantra of the fanatical prospector is: One more call.

Law of the Universe: Nothing happens until something moves. Law of Business: Nothing happens until someone sells something. —Jeb Blount

The CFO asks the CEO, “What happens if we invest in developing our people and they leave us?” The CEO responds, “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?

When your pipeline is full – with business coming out of your ears – the notion of people asking for a discount will sound hilarious, because you’ll already be at capacity

The fact is, if you are having a hard time getting appointments, getting to decision makers, getting information, or closing the deal, 9 out of 10 times it is because you are not asking.

It is no different in sales. Elite salespeople, like elite athletes, track everything. You will never reach peak performance until you know your numbers and use those numbers to make directional corrections.

Overcoming doesn't work. There is a universal law of human behavior: You cannot argue another person into believing that they are wrong. The more you push another person, the more they dig their heels in and resist you.

Vision without execution is hallucination. So

Perfectionism is highly correlated with fear of failure

Effective delegation begins with effective communication.

Not ​everything is a priority, and in some cases, this means that there are tasks that may not get done. That's okay. Keep the pipe full and get the deals closed and no one will ever remember.

Time blocking is transformational for salespeople. It changes everything. When you get disciplined at blocking your time and concentrating your power, you see a massive and profound impact on your productivity. You become incredibly efficient when you block your day into short chunks of time for specific activities. You get more accomplished in a shorter time with far better results.

The moral of the story: promote only those you would hire. Put your SDRs through the same hiring and evaluation process you would for external candidates. No one benefits—not you, your company, sales leadership, or the SDRs themselves—when a promotion sets reps up to fail.

One of the most effective ways to unload nonsales activity is to just say no. You don't have to take on or do everything that others bring to you. Whenever someone brings a task to you that has the potential to derail your Golden Hours and it is not mission critical—say no. This won't be easy. However, if you consistently create reasonable boundaries, it won't take long for others to get the message.

What works to generate flows of new leads: Trial-and-error in lead generation (requires patience, experimentation, money). “Marketing through teaching” via regular webinars, white papers, email newsletters and live events, to establish yourself as the trusted expert in your space (takes lots of time to build predictable momentum). Patience in building great word-of-mouth (the highest value lead generation source, but hardest to influence). Cold Calling 2.0: By far the most predictable and controllable source of creating new pipeline, but it takes focus and expertise to do it well. Luckily, you are holding the guide to the process in your hands right now. Building an excited partner ecosystem (very high value, very long time-to-results). PR: It’s great when, once in awhile, it generates actual results!

If You Only Track Five Metrics… Track as many of these as you can in your sales force automation system’s dashboards: New leads created per month (also, from what source). Conversion rate of leads to opportunities. Number of, and pipeline dollar value of, qualified opportunities created per month. This is the most important leading indicator of revenue! Conversion rates of opportunities to closed deals. Booked revenues in three categories: New Business, Add-On Business, Renewal Business.

Why do prospects lie—consciously or subconsciously? One of the most cogent explanations I've heard comes from Seth Godin.1 He says that prospects lie because salespeople have trained them to, and “because they're afraid.” They have learned that when they tell the truth, “the salesperson responds by questioning the judgment of the prospect. In exchange for telling the truth, the prospect is disrespected. Of course we [prospects] don't tell the truth—if we do, we're often bullied or berated or made to feel dumb. Is it any surprise that it's easier to just avoid the conflict altogether?”​

What works to generate flows of new leads: Trial-and-error in lead generation (requires patience, experimentation, money). “Marketing through teaching” via regular webinars, white papers, email newsletters and live events, to establish yourself as the trusted expert in your space (takes lots of time to build predictable momentum). Patience in building great word-of-mouth (the highest value lead generation source, but hardest to influence). Outbound Prospecting (aka "Cold Calling 2.0"):: By far the most predictable and controllable source of creating new pipeline, but it takes focus and expertise to do it well. Luckily, you are holding the guide to the process in your hands right now. Building an excited partner ecosystem (very high value, very long time-to-results). PR: It’s great when, once in a while, it generates actual results!

Superstars are relentless, unstoppable prospectors. They are obsessive about keeping their pipeline full of qualified prospects. They prospect anywhere and anytime—constantly turning over rocks looking for their next opportunity. They prospect day and night—unstoppable and always on. Fanatical!

down. Until one day they get so far down that they can't get back

Act enthusiastic, think enthusiastic thoughts, and use enthusiastic language and you will begin to feel enthusiastic and eventually become enthusiastic.

Cold Calling 2.0: By far the most predictable and controllable source of creating new pipeline, but it takes focus and expertise to do it well. Luckily, you are holding the guide to the process in your hands right now.

Having enough other opportunities to work on is the best position a salesperson and his or her company can be in. A full pipeline gives salespeople the strongest position from which to negotiate—the ability to say no.

When you are scaling a sales team, the to-do list is endless. Hiring, training, coaching, pipeline reviews, forecasting, enterprise deal support, leadership development, and cross-functional communication are all part of the day-to-day.

When trust goes down, speed goes down and costs go up. Distrust slows everything. Sales decelerate, customers grow cold, and team members get discouraged or drop out entirely. Distrust has hard costs. If you’re distrusted, people will actively refuse to do business with you, your pipeline of revenue freezes, and in extreme cases you shut down.

the foundational root of all success in sales is a fanatical focus on prospecting,

The cumulative impact of many poor decisions, slips in self-disciplines, and things put off until it is too late.

the brutal reality that in sales it is not about what you have sold but rather what you have sold today.

New leads created per month (also, from what source). Conversion rate of leads to opportunities. Number of, and pipeline dollar value of, qualified opportunities created per month. This is the most important leading indicator of revenue! Conversion rates of opportunities to closed deals. Booked revenues in three categories: New Business, Add-On Business, Renewal Business.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

The more I practice, the luckier I get.

A good metric changes the way you behave. This is by far the most important criterion for a metric: what will you do differently based on changes in the metric? Drawing a line in the sand is a great way to enforce a disciplined approach. A good metric changes the way you behave precisely because it’s aligned to your goals of keeping users, encouraging word of mouth, acquiring customers efficiently, or generating revenue. Unfortunately, that’s not always how it happens. At one company, Alistair saw a sales executive tie quarterly compensation to the number of deals in the pipeline, rather than to the number of deals closed, or to margin on those sales. Salespeople are coin-operated, so they did what they always do: they followed the money. In this case, that meant a glut of junk leads that took two quarters to clean out of the pipeline—time that would have been far better spent closing qualified prospects. Of course, customer satisfaction or pipeline flow is vital to a successful business. But if you want to change behavior, your metric must be tied to the behavioral change you want. If you measure something and it’s not attached to a goal, in turn changing your behavior, you’re wasting your time. Worse, you may be lying to yourself and fooling yourself into believing that everything is OK. That’s no way to succeed.

To Never Overpay . . . •​Develop a standardized valuation model of your own. •​Use your own estimates of sales and margins. •​Factor in anticipated cost savings, but not sales synergies. •​Value acquisitions conservatively and walk away if the deal becomes too rich. •​Don’t let the dealmakers negotiate the terms. •​Exercise final oversight, exploring the downsides and scuttling the deal if you risk overpaying. •​Maintain a great pipeline of potential deals so that no single deal seems like a must-have.

prospecting, all you really need to do is give your prospect a good enough reason to meet with you and they'll say yes. It doesn't need to be perfect—just good enough to get in the door.

There are three steps to asking: Ask with confidence and assume you will get what you want. Shut up. Be prepared to deal with reflex responses, brush-offs, and objections.

John, Heard about you while looking up Marketing Directors for major hospitals and love your backstory - incredible that you work as a volunteer firefighter as well. I specialize in iOS development for the healthcare industry. Recently, we built an app for Johns Hopkins that has increased their patient happiness rating by 75% through an automated dashboard. Interested in improving your patient happiness at Baylor? Let me know and I’ll send over some times to chat. Thanks, Alex

valuable person in your company. Top of funnel pipeline creation that actually converts to revenue is highly valued by those who make the decisions on who to retain or promote in tough times.

Superstars view prospecting as a way of life. They prospect with single-minded focus, worrying little about what other people think of them. They enthusiastically dive into telephone prospecting, e-mail prospecting, cold calling, networking, asking for referrals, knocking on doors, following up on leads, attending trade shows,

Consider Jerry. His prospecting is inconsistent at best. Several of the deals he was counting on and put into his forecast pushed off decisions to next quarter or were lost to a competitor. Because of this, he has only a handful of viable opportunities left in his pipeline. Now, with the end of the quarter looming, Jerry is under tremendous pressure. He desperately needs one of these deals to close. As Jerry becomes more desperate to close anything, he comes face to face with a cruel reality: Desperation magnifies and

The problem is, most companies can't create enough qualified inbound leads to keep the pipeline full. And,

Any company generating between $5 million and $150 million in revenue. I find that companies in this niche have the ability to pay, and aren't ground down by layers of management and decision-making that can be associated with massive enterprises.

two critical questions to get a very fast snapshot of how effective this particular salesperson is: 1. Can you name for me the new opportunities that are in your pipeline today that were not here when we met last month? In other words, can you tell me what fresh opportunities you have identified or created in the past month? 2. Can you name for me the existing opportunities that you moved forward in the sales process since we reviewed your pipeline together last month?

The very best salespeople have mastered balanced prospecting in the same manner that wealthy people have mastered balance in their investment portfolios. Balance simply means that to get the best return from your prospecting time investment, there should be a mixture of telephone, in-person, e-mail, social selling, text messaging, referrals, networking, inbound leads, trade shows, and cold calling. The relative distribution of your time investment in each prospecting methodology should be based on your unique situation.

That's it. Nothing more. So instead of whining about the things that are out of your control, focus your energy on what you can control—your attitude, choices, emotions, goals, ambitions, dreams, desires, and discipline

Here's the deal. If you want sustained success in your sales career, if you want to maximize your income, then you've got to interrupt prospects.

The cash-strapped Scott didn’t simply agree to stop refining oil but offered Standard Oil a huge fire sale of assets—refineries, storage tanks, pipelines, a fleet of steamships, tugboats, barges, loading docks—in fact, far more than Standard could afford.

email will attract way more referrals. Let's say, for example, you're working with Sony; the

The first step toward building an endless pipeline of new customers is acknowledging the truth and stepping back from your emotional need to find Easy Street. In sales, easy is the mother of mediocrity, and in your life, mediocrity is like a broke uncle. Once he moves into your house, it is nearly impossible to get him to leave.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a marketing strategy that focuses on managing interactions and relationships with customers. CRM enables businesses to improve customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention by providing personalized experiences that meet their needs. CRM is an essential aspect of modern marketing as it enables businesses to understand their customers' behavior, preferences, and needs and develop targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with them. In Go High Level, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a core component of the platform. The CRM functionality in Go High Level enables businesses to manage their customer interactions and relationships more effectively, improving customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. The CRM functionality in Go High Level includes a range of features and tools designed to help businesses automate and streamline their customer-facing processes, as well as provide them with insights into their customers' behavior, preferences, and needs. In essence, CRM is a set of practices, technologies, and strategies that businesses use to manage their customer interactions and relationships. The goal of CRM is to build stronger, more meaningful relationships with customers by providing them with personalized experiences and tailored solutions. CRM in marketing can be divided into three main categories: operational CRM, analytical CRM, and collaborative CRM. Operational CRM focuses on automating and streamlining customer-facing processes, such as sales, marketing, and customer service. This type of CRM is designed to improve efficiency and productivity by automating repetitive tasks and providing a centralized database of customer information. Operational CRM includes features such as sales pipeline management, lead nurturing, and customer service management. Analytical CRM focuses on analyzing customer data to gain insights into their behavior, preferences, and needs. This type of CRM enables businesses to make data-driven decisions by providing them with a better understanding of their customers' needs and preferences. Analytical CRM includes features such as customer segmentation, data mining, and predictive analytics. Collaborative CRM focuses on enabling businesses to collaborate and share customer information across different departments and functions. This type of CRM helps to break down silos within organizations and improve communication and collaboration between different teams. Collaborative CRM includes features such as customer feedback management, social media monitoring, and knowledge management. CRM is important for marketing because it enables businesses to build stronger, more meaningful relationships with customers. By understanding their customers' behavior, preferences, and needs, businesses can develop targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with them. This results in higher customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. CRM can also help businesses to improve their sales and marketing processes by providing them with better visibility into their sales pipeline and enabling them to track and analyze their marketing campaigns' effectiveness. This enables businesses to make data-driven decisions to improve their sales and marketing strategies, resulting in increased revenue and growth. Another benefit of CRM in marketing is that it enables businesses to personalize their marketing campaigns. Personalization is essential in modern marketing as it enables businesses to tailor their marketing messages and solutions to meet their customers' specific needs and preferences. This results in higher engagement and conversion rates, as customers are more likely to respond to marketing messages that resonate with them. Lead Generation: Go High Level provides businesses with a range of tools to generate leads, including customizable landing pages, web forms, and social media integrations.

Another expert cold-called my VP of Sales at Sales Gravy on the telephone to pitch her social selling program as an advanced lead generation program that would eliminate cold calling forever. He challenged her: “If your program is so good, why are you cold-calling me? Shouldn't I be calling you?” That abruptly ended the call.

Hi, Candace, this is Jeb Blount from Sales Gravy. The reason I am calling is to schedule an appointment with you to show you our new sales onboarding automation software. Many of my clients are frustrated because it takes too long to get new salespeople ramped up to full productivity and find that it's holding their business growth back. Our software typically cuts onboarding time and costs for new sales reps by 50 percent, and makes it super easy to manage new rep onboarding, giving you the peace of mind that your new hires will start selling fast. I have 2:00 PM on Thursday open. How about we get together for a short meeting so I can learn more about you and see whether it makes sense to schedule a demo?

Fraud and manipulation aside, revenue shows the dollar volume of the goods or services the company has delivered to its customers. But it’s not the only significant measure of a company’s sales success. Equally important, in many cases, are the orders that have been signed but not yet started, or the revenue not yet recognized on partially completed projects. This is the value, in other words, of what’s in the pipeline. Companies variously refer to these not-yet-recognized sales as backlog or bookings.

Step 1: Intro “Is this Nancy Kowalczik? Koh - wal - chik.” “Yes” “Hey, It’s Justin Michael from Acme Corp.” Step 2: Route “Just curious... Who’s in charge of your CX strategy?” “Why, what’s this about?” “I have some CX tech but don’t want to waste your time... just curious who heads up CX, does that roll up to you?” Step 3: Ruin (Peel the Onion) “Yes” “How do you do that now? Do you handle it internally or work with a 3rd party?

They push phone prospecting, e-mail prospecting, social selling, trade shows, referrals, networking, or inbound marketing as the one true way while disparaging all other forms—usually by labeling the forms they don't like “cold calling” to create the ultimate turnoff. “Do it my way,” they'll tell you, “and you'll get unlimited qualified leads. All for only $999!

As he watched his traders run from office to office, Howell had a pivotal realization. Every time a trader sold a barrel of oil, the transaction produced an ultravaluable by-product: information. Each sale was a price signal. And as Koch bought and sold hundreds of thousands of barrels of fuel around the world, it began to accumulate this ultravaluable information in one place. This information could then be paired with yet more ultravaluable information that only Koch Industries had access to: the huge output of price signals that were generated by Koch’s oil refineries and pipelines. These physical plants gave Koch’s traders a window into the future. Koch knew, for example, when it was about to shut down the Pine Bend refinery for repairs, or when it might be shutting down a pipeline. When this happened, Howell’s traders could start gaming the downstream effects on local energy markets—all those opaque nodes that would be affected. And they could do this before any other traders even knew it was happening. There is no way to overstate the value of this kind of inside information.

The evidence of past mistakes was still everywhere in 2000. Koch Industries was still carrying the accumulated litter that was left behind by countless Value Creation Strategies, years of acquisitions, and rapid growth. As Koch reviewed its holdings, one executive described the corporate structure as representing a table piled high at a rummage sale, full of odds and ends that had no apparent rationale for belonging together. Koch began to unload these properties, selling off pipeline holdings like the Chase Transportation Company. It sold a chemical firm called Koch Microelectronic Service Company and closed down a new $30 million chemical plant in Bryan, Texas. Over a period of years, Koch would sell off thousands of miles of pipelines. The corporate odds and ends were discarded. The remaining businesses at Koch were restructured and streamlined. The most important division, Koch Petroleum, was renamed Flint Hills Resources and given new leaders. Other businesses were consolidated under a new, simplified structure that put them under the umbrella of a few new companies like Koch Minerals, Koch Supply & Trading, and Koch Chemical Technology Group.

Results of a good meeting: Facts — concrete, specific facts about what they do and why they do it (as opposed to the bad data of compliments, fluff, and opinions) Commitment — They are showing they’re serious by giving up something they value such as meaningful amounts of time, reputation risk, or money Advancement — They are moving to the next step of your real-world funnel and getting closer to a sale Signs you’re just going through the motions: You’re talking more than they are They are complimenting you or your idea You told them about your idea and don’t have next steps You don’t have notes You haven’t looked through your notes with your team You got an unexpected answer and it didn’t change your idea You weren’t scared of any of the questions you asked You aren’t sure which big question you’re trying to answer You aren’t sure why you’re having the meeting Writing it down — signal symbols: :)Excited :( Angry :|Embarrassed ☇ Pain or problem (symbol is a lightning bolt) ⨅ Goal or job-to-be-done (symbol is a soccer/football goal) ☐ Obstacle ⤴Workaround ^Background or context (symbol is a distant mountain) ☑ Feature request or purchasing criteria ＄Money or budgets or purchasing process ♀ Mentioned a specific person or company ☆ Follow-up task Signs you aren’t pushing for commitment and advancement: A pipeline of zombie leads Ending product meetings with a compliment Ending product meetings with no clear next steps Meetings which “went well” They haven’t given up anything of value Asking for and framing the meeting: Vision — half-sentence of how you’re making the world better Framing — where you’re at and what you’re looking for Weakness — where you’re stuck and how you can be helped Pedestal — show that they, in particular, can provide that help Ask — ask for help The big prep question: “What do we want to learn from these guys?

at SixFigureSalesAcademy.com

Kanchan Sales is a Copper Fittings manufacturer for Refrigeration Systems, Air Conditioning, and Medical Gas Pipeline Systems (MGPS). Kanchan Sales is a manufacturer and supplier of Copper Fittings such as Copper Elbow Fittings, Copper Coupling fittings, Copper Tee Fittings, etc. in India.

If you want sustained success in your sales career, if you want to maximize your income, then you've got to interrupt prospects.

Interrupting your prospect's day is a fundamental building block of robust sales pipelines. No matter your prospecting approach, if you don't interrupt relentlessly, your pipeline will be anemic.

So the question is not, to cold call or not to cold call. Instead, the question is how to strategically balance prospecting across the various prospecting channels to give you a competitive advantage when interrupting prospects in the crowded, competitive marketplace.

Let's begin with a basic premise: The feeling of rejection is real. When a prospect tells you no, your brain doesn't know the difference between the prospect rejecting your proposition or rejecting you. To your brain, it is one and the same.

To be successful today, your sales process and sales development strategy must align with the way your prospects think (often called the buyer’s journey). I’ve built a five-step framework for thinking about the modern B2B buying process. I call it The Five Whys (see figure 2.1).   Figure 2.1 – The Five Whys   The Five Whys are questions that prospects ask themselves along the way in a complex B2B purchase. As

Sales development should be teeing up introductory meetings so that the account executive can do the work of educating the prospect and developing that curiosity into interest. If

Plenty of companies have suffered with acknowledged pain for years. Their biggest issue is fear that the cure will hurt worse than the illness. You need to dig for the implications of not acting. An organization that isn’t in motion is much harder to move than one that has already realized the consequences of inaction.

The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe, and, the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to prospect.

The implication of the 30-Day Rule is simple. Miss a day of prospecting and it will tend to bite you sometime in the next 90 days. Miss a week and you will feel it in your commission check. Miss the entire month and you will tank your pipeline, fall into a slump, and wake up 90 days later desperate, feeling like a loser, with no clue how you ended up there.

The lesson the Law of Replacement teaches is that you must constantly be pushing new opportunities into your pipeline so that you're replacing the opportunities that will naturally fall out. And, you must do so at a rate that matches or exceeds your closing ratio. This is where a fanatical prospecting mindset really begins to pay off.

To succeed in sales, simply talk to lots of people every day. And here's what's exciting—there are lots of people! —Jim Rohn

Everything you ever need to know about anything is contained in a book. Everything! If you want to learn something or become an expert at anything, all you need to do is read. Yet,

One inbound SDR can typically handle about two hundred to three hundred leads a month when fully ramped. There is some variation based on average selling price, data quality, and other factors. But in my experience, this seems to be the magic number.

I came to the conclusion that hiring had to be my number one priority,” commented Mark. “I felt that if I could get the right people into the system, even if I did a mediocre job at training and management, they would find a way to win. But if I got mediocre people in, even if I did a world-class job at training and leading, it wouldn’t matter.

If you always hire people who are smaller than you are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. If, on the other hand, you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants.

2. Your sales people should understand what their expected levels of performance are. “We know you are developing and executing great deal strategies when you are doing these types of things….” “You must keep a healthy funnel/pipeline. Healthy funnels have high integrity, should have this volume and should have this flow/velocity…” For example, if they don’t know the sales process, if they don’t know they are expected to use the sales process, then they won’t have any idea what they are doing right or wrong.

Prisoners of hope describes salespeople who have, for the most part, stopped working the sales process and ceased pursuing new opportunities because they are so hopeful the precious few deals in their pipeline are going to close. They spend (waste) most of their time talking about, worrying about, wondering about, that good-size contract that was predicted to close last month but didn’t. Instead of doing the wise and responsible thing—spreading their effort across target accounts and opportunities in various stages of the sales cycle—they lock up, becoming prisoners to deals in the pipeline that are now getting stale and starting to grow mold.

But, he isn’t wearing anything at all!” Such plainspoken truth is urgently needed to dispel a myth that hobbles European strategic thinking: that Europe is too dependent on Russian natural gas to risk a serious row with Russia over its escalating war against Ukraine. As Moscow prepares to instigate a crisis over this winter’s natural gas supplies, Europe can secure its interests by remembering that Russia is dependent on Europe as its primary gas export market – and by preparing to weather the winter without buying Russian gas. This spring, while Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine were gearing up for action, President Vladimir Putin tried to intimidate European leaders by suggesting that the Kremlin might redirect natural gas from Europe to China in retaliation for any EU sanctions. On May 21, Mr Putin suddenly reversed a decade of resistance and caved in to Chinese demands for a lower gas price, accepting $350 per thousand cubic metres. That is 42 per cent less than the price Lithuania pays – so low that it risks depressing natural gas prices throughout the Far East, including for future Russian sales to Japan. Moreover, Moscow will have to borrow $50bn to pay for new pipelines and other infrastructure, costs that must be repaid out of the paltry revenues. Mr Putin was willing to accept such poor economics because his main goal was political: to intimidate Europe. But behind the grandstanding, the Russian president knows that Europe is the only viable market for Russian natural gas, and that it will continue to be so for decades.

Top performers organize their day into distinct time blocks dedicated to specific activities, concentrating their focus and eliminating distractions within those blocks.

Procrastination is an ugly disease that plagues the human race.

Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.

Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.

One of the commonalities that I observe among top salespeople and fanatical prospectors across all market segments—inside and outside—is manual tracking of activity.

The longer a deal stays in your pipeline, the less likely you are to ever close it, even if your prospect claimed that he or she desperately needed your offering. If the sales process does get stalled out, the only person who loses is you.

The myth that the phone no longer works—because people don't answer—is disproven daily in our Fanatical Prospecting Boot Camps. The myth is disproven by our sales team at Sales Gravy and with thousands of sales teams across the country that survive and thrive on the phone. The statistics don't lie. We see between a 15 percent and 80 percent contact rate on the phones depending on the industry, product, and role level of the contact. For example, in the business services segment, contact rates are consistently between 25 and 40 percent. This, by the way, is far higher than response rates with e-mail and light-years higher than those of social prospecting. All

What's the secret that separates superstars from everyone else, and why do they consistently outperform other salespeople? Fanatical prospecting. Superstars are relentless, unstoppable prospectors. They are obsessive about keeping their pipeline full of qualified prospects. They prospect anywhere and anytime—constantly turning over rocks looking for their next opportunity. They prospect day and night—unstoppable and always on. Fanatical! My

I’ve seen so many otherwise very talented executives fail to see how a large amount of deals and revenue coming in now were attributable to last month’s campaigns, who are trying to whip their people into getting more sales this week – despite a lack of a sales pipeline, qualified leads, appropriately generating referrals immediately after successful delivery, and all those sorts of best practices.

Your Actions Your Reactions Your Mindset

It became quickly apparent that sales pipeline metrics have two distinct uses. The first intended use is to measure the health of the company looking into the future.

The second use of sales pipeline metrics is to measure the effectiveness of salespeople at moving opportunities through their sales cycles.

Therefore, the closest you can get to managing your sales pipeline is to manage your salespeople’s opportunities and calls. In

I don't focus on what I'm up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest. —Venus Williams

In the sales profession, it's not about what you have sold, it is about what you sell today.

Most salespeople never get lucky because they only do the minimal amount of prospecting required to just squeak by, and when they do start prospecting (usually out of desperation), they expect instant miracles. When those miracles don't happen, they gripe that prospecting doesn't work and crawl back into the warm comfort of mediocrity.

Arnold Palmer: “The more I practice, the luckier I get.

agents had come up with every excuse in the book for not making the calls. One even complained to me that “he didn't ‘sign up’ for cold calling.” I politely explained that calling a current client—someone who is already doing business with you, familiar with you, and most likely to take your call—was about as far from cold calling as Perth, Australia, is from New York City.