by Art Waskey | Jul 2, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
In today’s digital marketplace, it is important to recognize that your sales team needs the right tools in order to successfully compete. Enterprise technology — the deployment of hardware, software, and other digital tools — is a powerful motivation for the new generation of salespeople. For example, Gen Y, Z, and Alphas want to know their employers are leaders in the adoption of technologies like AI, virtual reality, and drones. Employees seek employers committed to attracting and retaining talent. So, without opportunities for immersive learning, industry association involvement, and rapid advancement, your representatives may leave for positions that offer broader experiences.
More and better data
Data is the backbone of enterprise technology. As ERP, e-commerce, and product information tools become more affordable, even smaller companies can now adopt digital systems. Younger team members have led the way—cleaning up data and helping businesses transition to more accurate, tech-driven processes.
It’s been inspiring to see the next generation take ownership of these projects. As a result, many vendors have praised how quickly new salespeople are learning and using their software. Having the right tech tools isn’t just practical—it’s a powerful motivator for your sales team.
Enterprise technology has made data collection faster and more accurate.
Information on call reporting, prospect funnels, dashboards, and scorecards has streamlined the executive, sales, and administrative review processes. Also, it has enabled companies to compete and succeed in today’s digitally fueled marketplace.
Meet the challenge
In conclusion, market share reduction pressure from alternative supply chains weighs heavily on the minds of independent distributors. Lastly, to meet this challenge head-on on you need the ability to grow a cohesive team where motivation is fundamental, performance is recognized, and growth is sustained. To improve your business, be sure enterprise technology is in your toolbox.
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by Art Waskey | Jun 25, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
One of the best ways a company can improve sales is by providing its sales reps with consistent positive feedback. Being appreciated for a job well done is a great motivator.
Motivating methods
Monthly reviews are a great opportunity to recognize each team member’s contributions, but consistent, daily engagement is even more impactful. When I served as Vice President of Sales, we required sales managers to spend time in the field with their reps at least once a month. The most effective leaders don’t just show up periodically—they stay actively involved in their team’s day-to-day success.
Stay positive
Managers need to maintain a positive attitude. I once accompanied a rep on a visit to a customer, where she was poorly treated. The client expressed his disdain for women selling in a male-dominated industry. We were both appalled and crushed by this behavior. Also, the rep needed positive feedback. I reminded her that she was the most successful salesperson on our team.
Feedback should always focus on the positive. Encourage your people to grow based on their strengths, and not waste energy on things that may have gone wrong. Make sure you help your team focus on positive incidents. Those are what drive your business forward.
Reward achievement
It is important to reward achievement. I recommend that at the end of each year, you have a ceremony to acknowledge each person’s accomplishments. Moreover, I believe people may work for money, but they give their best for recognition. Recognize growth in margin dollars and percent increase, so that large and small territories each have a chance for acknowledgement.
Make every effort to see that each rep is rewarded in some way. Quarterly companywide meetings that celebrate smaller individual victories are also great motivators. And in addition to public acclaim, spontaneous acknowledgments of success and one-on-one congratulatory gestures are also important. Not everyone enjoys the limelight. Be sure to develop a habit of recognizing individuals in the way they feel most comfortable.
Boost sales
Remember, the best leaders are actively involved with their sales team. Lastly, to boost your company’s rate of sales success, provide your team with positive feedback and rewards for their achievements.
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by Art Waskey | Jun 18, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
A sales leader knows how to set effective goals in specific areas and recognizes that par levels are different for each individual. To boost your company’s sales success, be sure you are setting appropriate goals.
A daily call report
Fundamental to all sales systems is a daily call report. This tool tracks the reason for each sales visit, what was accomplished, and the purpose of the next appointment. The best time to record a call is before moving on to the next client. Using an AI assistant is the most effective way to ensure all pertinent information is collected. Timely data is paramount to the accuracy of your sales goals.
Be specific
Setting clear, specific, attainable actions keeps your team focused and motivated. To be effective, accomplishments should be measured against goals. In face-to-face monthly meetings with reps, managers should review and record progress.
Goals should include
Here are four important items to include in your goals:
- A funnel for prospects, including next steps with special attention to the top five targets.
- A dashboard of measurable objectives with focused attention on no more than six to eight benchmarks, such as:
- Margin dollars for new accounts
- Margin dollars of penetration into existing accounts
- Prospective client calls made
- New contracts secured
- Units of new products sold
- A sales results scorecard that tracks territory sales and margin growth, and new business margin. These measurements should include the change from last month and the change from the same month last year.
- A monthly assessment report. This is the time for the sales manager to recognize and reward success. The rep will know areas he/she need to improve. The manager shouldn’t need to mention them. The numbers will tell the story.
Set appropriate goals
Improve your company’s sales success by setting appropriate goals. Remember, goals should be mutually agreed upon. A new year’s goals should be based on the previous year’s results. Make room for reassessment during the year based on changes in business or personal conditions.
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by Art Waskey | Jun 11, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
One of an executive sales manager’s most challenging responsibilities is keeping people motivated and encouraging their professional growth. To be an effective leader, one of the most important facts to recognize is that each team member has unique abilities. What stimulates one team member may not prompt another.
Growth mindset
Before a leader can recognize specific talent in others, they must first be able to exhibit their own. To do this, an inspiring coach must have a growth mindset. As described in Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Mindset), a growth mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed over time through effort and learning. Adopting a growth mindset can lead to improved motivation, resilience, and overall success in various aspects of life.
I remember witnessing Michael Jordan hit a 3-point shot against the Denver Nuggets at the final buzzer. He had to have the self-confidence that every star exhibits for long-term success. That mindset requires hard work and a lifetime of consistent self-improvement.
If you won the lottery
When I work with new clients, I always ask the question, “If you won the lottery and never had to work another day in your life, what would you do?”. The response of a potentially successful salesperson should center on their desire to meet new people and help them solve their problems. A passion to strengthen and grow their people skills through a relentless work ethic should also be expressed.
Each person is unique
Remember, each person you manage is unique. To better understand a person’s individual strengths, I recommend training on DISC personal insights, an assessment tool that can reveal behavioral preferences and tendencies. Also, look at team members’ organizational skills and knowledge of their industry’s sales cycle. These capacity appraisals uncover personal strengths, which a sales leader can help a team member build upon. When salespeople feel their abilities are recognized and utilized, they are motivated to succeed.
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by Art Waskey | May 28, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
I am becoming increasingly aware of the importance of using digital tools, especially in the context of sales. The distributorship I was part of for 34 years was an early adopter of digital technology. We used Salesforce, which in the mid-2000s was somewhat clunky and primarily served as a telemarketing tool. While it was effective for collecting information, it was not very useful for outside sales. Today, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools are a game changer, and the younger generation is embracing them.
The give back
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can generate solutions and provide information. The data it outputs often exceeds the initial input. Advanced CRM solutions offer predictive capabilities, valuable insights, and seamless integration with your ERP, e-commerce platform, business intelligence tools, data warehouse, and other product information management software.
Implementing CRMs
When implementing your CRM tools, start at the top. Get your top-level executive leaders on board first. Then, engage your younger sales team in the process. Once your best salesperson is on board and producing results, the rest of the sales team will fall in line. Complete the implementation with continuous encouragement and support.
It’s certainly challenging to encourage older sales team members to adopt digital tools. Customer Relationship Management systems signify a significant shift from their established, successful sales strategies. While it’s beneficial to have experienced team members teach younger colleagues their sales skills, don’t anticipate a quick transition to digitalization.
Intelligence and automation
CRM use in distribution is growing. The technology is evolving to meet the changing demands of that industry. CRM systems provide intelligence and automation that enable distribution sales teams to be more efficient. Also, companies can deliver personalized customer experiences, increase sales efficiency, make more calls, and produce greater revenues using CRM.
Get started
CRM tools are a game changer, and the younger generation is embracing them. Start your buy-in before your existing sales strategies render your organization obsolete. Even small distributors can afford CRM tools today. In conclusion, equip your sales team with the best CRM technology that enables you to compete in today’s digital marketplace.
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by Art Waskey | May 21, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
It’s a new day in sales
Artificial Intelligence tools are transforming processes. By analyzing data and automating processes, AI can significantly enhance your revenue stream.
More efficient sales processes
Here are two examples of how AI is making the sales process more efficient and effective.
- Upselling and Cross-Selling Strategies. AI helps sales reps make better recommendations. Before visiting an existing client or prospect, AI software can check your enhanced CRM to ensure reps know their client’s history. Also, this allows a representative to engage in a conversation with insight into their client’s buying patterns. They can recommend appropriate products and capitalize on upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
- Automate your follow up. Most sales reps make follow up calls at the end of the day. The content in these call reports is often based on the rep’s memory and can lack pertinent information. The more manual your follow up process, the more likely it is that key details slip through the cracks.
With the help of AI, follow-up tasks can be automated. Between sales calls, a sales representative can use an AI assistant to quickly summarize recent account activity. Moreover, they can record a call report and research the goals for their next visit. The AI can also prepare a quote with optimal pricing as an attachment and send a follow-up email to the client, confirming the next appointment.
How to start
If you are not currently engaged in AI, where should you get started? Brook Hamilton of Hamilton AI Strategy Advisors (“AI News and Gurus: The Show for Intelligent Distributors, “Distribution Strategy Group, suggests distributors should focus on these three areas:
- Customer conversion closing rates
- Optimized customer pricing
- Inventory management
Advance your business
Lastly, let AI help your sales team focus on customer conversions, optimized pricing, and inventory management. Watch your business grow.
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by Art Waskey | May 15, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Focus on your core business
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are particularly effective for your core business. Companies have a lot of information on existing customers, and AI can crunch that data for you. According to a McKinsey report, 80 percent of the value creation achieved by successful growth companies comes from their core business—namely, generating new revenue from existing customers.
Selling to existing customers
Todd Daubenberger, CRO at White Cup, says selling to existing customers costs less than finding new ones. AI-powered platforms help by giving teams smart suggestions based on order history. With the right tools, companies can boost revenue by 10% to 30%. (“Eight Upselling and Cross-Selling Strategies That Drive Sales Growth,” distributionstrategy.com)
How AI strengthens your core
A sales rep’s job involves juggling multiple tasks. A recent report by the Distribution Strategy Group explained how AI is providing data that helps reps keep all the balls in the air.
The Distribution Strategy Group reported: “Distributors are catching on. Recent research shows that 78% of survey distributors plan to use data and analytics to guide their decision-making and sales strategies. Many are also leaning into CRMs and AI-powered tools to help their reps work smarter, not harder. In seconds, AI can surface a long-time customer whose orders are slipping, signaling a churn risk. It can also reveal a high-potential prospect that’s gone quiet and needs a follow-up or a growing account with untapped opportunities in new product categories.”
Work smarter
Growing your core business is essential to success. Lastly, make sure you have the AI tools to allow your sales team to work smarter, not harder.
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by Art Waskey | May 7, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Traditional sales techniques can be improved with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). According to a recent article in Forbes (“Why Sales Reps Spend So Little Time Selling by Ken Krogue, Forbes), conventional reps spend 35% of their time selling and 65% on everything else.
The traditional sales process
The traditional sales process for distributors involves juggling many tasks and coordinating lots of customer information. As a past VP of Sales, I remember my frustration with seeing outside sales reps in their offices until mid-morning. Why were they not out engaging with customers? The representatives shared that they were working to develop the best plan of attack. They were working on whom to call, what to suggest to existing customers, and which accounts needed the most attention. The actual selling time was being lost. Monthly prospecting target results were weak. Also, I received call reports listing a day of six to eight prospective calls, with, maybe at best, two qualified leads. The success with productive calls to existing accounts was not much better.
To improve the situation, I invested significant time training representatives on preparing for customer visits. I instructed them to review old call reports and actively gather data from business intelligence, other departments, and various online sources. I also encouraged them to analyze sales history and examine credit spreadsheets.
AI to the rescue
All this effort and research on the part of reps, while important, is incredibly time-consuming, and results are often incomplete. AI can change this scenario by automating tasks and streamlining the traditional sales process. Machine learning is constantly analyzing the data behind sales transactions. It enables reps to see priorities faster. AI automates repetitive and tedious tasks like sorting through endless data, and allows reps to focus on what they do best — selling.
Improving the process
As you can see, AI doesn’t replace sales reps, it assists them. Finally, it automates numerous tasks in the traditional sales process, enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of sales strategies.
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by Art Waskey | Apr 29, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Attention, all sales executives. Digital Transformation (DX) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are here. It took a long time for the collection of technologies and applications referred to as DX (laptops, emails, texting, smartphones, social media technologies, etc.) to move from a conversation to a coordinated business reality. Also, take note that the adoption of artificial intelligence and its benefits is moving much faster. The good news is that artificial intelligence applications are affordable, even to smaller companies.
Outside sales is hard work
Outside sales is daunting work. Reps must be focused and able to close business fast to outperform the competition.
A rep’s job is a juggling act. He needs to chase leads, satisfy existing clients, follow up on backorders, correct pricing errors, handle objections, and keep competitors at bay. Inefficiencies within current systems can cause reps to spend too much time with the wrong prospects. Moreover, the correct information on existing customers’ objectives may also be lacking or hard to come by. This puts pressure on representatives and undermines their confidence in identifying next steps and surpassing the competition.
AI streamlines processes
New AI tools are available to make selling more strategically efficient. AI allows sales representatives to enhance various processes, such as lead generation, pricing, and follow-up, making it an exciting time to be in outside sales. According to McKinsey & Company, AI has “opened up 20% more sales team capacity” (“How Top Performers Outpace Peers in Sales Productivity,” July 6, 2023: mckinsey.com).
Adopting AI
In conclusion, be sure to provide your sales team with the appropriate artificial intelligence technologies to open up your sales capacity. AI tools are critical to beating your competition, especially the larger companies that have lots of AI tech powering their sales force. Lastly, you must adopt AI tools now. They will streamline the selling process and help you grow your business.
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by Art Waskey | Apr 18, 2025 | Uncategorized
Ensuring a Sale is Truly Complete
One of the most frustrating experiences for a salesperson is closing a deal only to see it unravel due to poor execution by their organization. A colleague once shared, “I worked hard to secure a new client, but our company mishandled the initial delivery, and we lost the business. It’s exhausting to see hard-earned sales slip away because of service mismanagement.”
As a consumer, I’ve experienced this firsthand. When my hot water heater started leaking, I sought a reliable provider. My first call was to a national hardware chain. They quoted me a reasonable price for both the tank and installation. But the next morning, a third-party installer called to add unexpected fees. Feeling misled, I canceled the order, and they didn’t even follow up to understand why.
This story highlights a key lesson: a sale isn’t complete until the customer is fully satisfied. Or, as Yogi Berra famously said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
Strategies to Ensure Sales Success
- Create a Strategic Plan
A salesperson’s job doesn’t end with the sale. Develop a clear schedule that outlines steps to ensure first-class delivery and service. Consider hosting a kickoff meeting with your customer and your internal team to set expectations for the first 60 days. Document required actions and anticipate potential challenges to address them proactively. - Enhance Team Collaboration
Salespeople are the bridge between customers and the organization. Strong communication between customer service, delivery personnel, and sales ensures any surprises are managed effectively. - Prevent Errors
Understand what your customer expects from the sale, from accurate inventory to seamless delivery and friendly customer service. Identify potential challenges and address them before they arise. - Exceed Expectations
Building long-term relationships hinges on surpassing customer expectations. Help customers streamline their operations, reduce costs, or improve efficiency with your product or service. - Measure Satisfaction
After delivery or installation, check in with your customer to gauge their satisfaction. Use a simple scoring system (e.g., 1 to 10) to understand how well you performed. Aim for a score of 9 or higher, and take immediate steps to address any shortcomings. - Foster Referrals
Strong relationships can lead to valuable referrals. When you consistently meet and exceed expectations, customers are more likely to introduce you to their network, expanding your pipeline.
Final Thoughts
In the end, I purchased my water heater from a personable local distributor who provided a clear, honest quote and managed the installation smoothly. After the project, the salesperson followed up with thoughtful questions to ensure I was satisfied.
This experience underscores the importance of seeing every sale through to the very end. Remember: it truly isn’t over till it’s over.
