Blogs from Art Waskey

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Monthly Sales Assessment – the Foundation of Success

This article on Monthly Sales Assessment is the last in my series on the AI-Enabled Sales Process. The Monthly Sales Assessment is a joint manager-salesperson meeting that reviews 10 key metrics across Outcomes and Territory Management. I consider it to be the...

Travel Days: Critical to Success

Throughout this AI-Enabled Sales Management series, we've examined AI tools that help maintain analytical focus on key performance indicators (KPIs). These tools help ensure alignment between representatives and management. Additionally, a critical component of this...

Defining Your Top 5 Prospects

In my career in sales management, I witnessed too many outside sales reps (OSR) get distracted and lose some top account opportunities. Today, AI can help with the challenge of defining your Top 5 Prospects. AI-Enabled Management can identify the best and most...

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Featured

The Transition to “Commercial Insight” Selling

Know your customer So much has changed with the pandemic, including in sales. Commercial Insight Selling is on the rise! What do I mean by that? Read on... As we edge our way back into a...

Build a Customer Success Team

The customer experience The digital transformation has radically changed the Customer Experience. To stay competitive the independent distributor must find new ways to reduce operating costs,...

4 Elements to Overcoming Inexperience

The seasoned salesperson knows where he/she is going and how to get there. It’s typical, however, to those new to the profession to feel insecure. In fact, it’s a good sign. Quoting Socrates, “The...
How to gain customer commitment

How to gain customer commitment

A rep came to me with the news that he was finally making headway with a prospect, but had trouble with them making the commitment. His new contact...

Building a Business Relationship

Building a Business Relationship

Stalled conversations One of my reps was finding it difficult to engage his prospects and build the relationship.  Seeking my counsel he explained,...

4 Elements to Overcoming Inexperience

4 Elements to Overcoming Inexperience

The seasoned salesperson knows where he/she is going and how to get there. It’s typical, however, to those new to the profession to feel insecure....

Building Self-confidence

Building Self-confidence

Self-esteem can be a bit of a misnomer as it often does not come entirely from within. The process of building self-confidence requires the support...

The Efficient Home Office

The Efficient Home Office

Many of the sales managers and reps I advise have commented that working from home during this pandemic has made them more efficient. This has come...

Shifting Sales and Service Channels

Shifting Sales and Service Channels

Stay Flexible with your Service Channels I recently went to the hardware store to purchase some plumbing supplies for a home project. I was delayed...

Treat Them All the Same

Treat Them All the Same

Now that I am no longer a Vice President at a well-established welding and gas distributor, I find it interesting to note how some people treat me...

Selling to a Unique Interest

Selling to a Unique Interest

Selling is about developing trust that evolves into long-term personal relationships.  I find it most difficult to get past the initial...

It All Starts Inside You

It All Starts Inside You

Stay Positive and Busy I recently received a call from a successful and highly skilled sales executive. I had watched him grow his base of quality...

4 Tips for Speaking Like a Pro

4 Tips for Speaking Like a Pro

I received an email from an engineer inquiring about my seminar, “Speaking with Confidence.” He told me he had to give a five-minute presentation to...

Relationships Matter

Relationships Matter

I was concerned that my salesperson wasn’t fully committed to building relationships of trust with his customers before trying to sell them our...

Securing Lasting, Up-Front Commitments

Securing Lasting, Up-Front Commitments

Presenting your solution to a customer’s problem before securing their commitment can have negative consequences. Be sure you don’t become the...

The Firm Up-Front Agreement

The Firm Up-Front Agreement

Are you often excited to make a sales call because you know you have a product or service that your prospective customer desperately needs? ...

5 Reasons Contracts Work

5 Reasons Contracts Work

I remember when your word was your bond and was all that was needed to form an agreement. In the last 20 years, however, verbal contracts have all...

The New Face-to-Face

The New Face-to-Face

When I retired in November of 2018, I knew I wanted to continue to chase my other passions: writing, public speaking, and consulting. When I...

3 Reasons to “Just Do It!”

3 Reasons to “Just Do It!”

Our company has a great motto: “Do what you say you are going to do, how you say you are going to do it, when you say you are going to do it, no...

Turning a Bid into Business

Turning a Bid into Business

I was traveling with one of our sales representatives when he informed me that we needed to stop at an account and pick up their annual bid request....

4 Lessons from a Mattress Salesman

4 Lessons from a Mattress Salesman

My wife had recently noted that our bed was beginning to have two distinct sags, and so on my lunch break I stopped in a mattress store.  A...

What’s Your Perspective?

What’s Your Perspective?

How important is perspective to your success in sales? Consider this. A shoe salesman finds himself on a remote island among a tribe of people who...