When selling CRM to rural sales teams, rural companies forget these same people are professionals who sell for a living so they need to be actually sold on something.    If you sell your CRM from the perspective of helping your business rather than helping them win, you won’t get any uptake.    Any big brother connotations?    Good luck with that.    Same for if you don’t reward all their conscientious recording with valuable and insightful reporting.    Why would they take their time to do something if it didn’t benefit them?    CRM ..read more

When I ask my students “What is the most important part of the sales process?” they always enthusiastically answer: the product or service they sell. I then ask them what I mean when I say “The first sale is to yourself” they answer automatically that it’s them believing and buying into the product or service they sell. Right? No. Noble attempts but all completely wrong. So here’s the critical ingredient that is robbing you of rural sales success… The single most important part of the sales process is you, the sales person. If you aren’t believable, reliable, polite, humble, responsive, punctu ..read more

You see it all the time. You take your dog for a walk and there’s your next door neighbour diligently watering their lawns, except that half of it hitting the pavement. What a waste of precious water you think. And the same goes for your rural marketing. I see rural marketing wastage everywhere. Press ads, print ads, field day events, social media organic content that no one likes except your employees and family members (aka. vanity metrics) and boring as b * * shit newsletters that are treated more like a compliance exercise, than content that is newsworthy and rewards the reader for reading ..read more

When I hear rural businesses utter these words I know they are living in La La Land. Your potential customers don’t ignore your competition so why would you? Saying you don’t focus on your competition is naïve, or worse arrogant as we all know what happens when businesses get arrogant: Blockbuster, Nokia or Kodak. To give people credit when they say they don’t focus on their competition what I think they mean to say when they make these absolute statements is that they don’t want to get distracted. They want to stay focused, “stay in their own lane” or “run their own race.” That’s perfectly fi ..read more

In the ever-changing, increasingly challenging world of rural sales, training is crucial to ensure your sales team remain relevant and performs to their highest potential. However, the traditional sales training industry – aka. Auckland and Sydney-based cookie-cutter franchise types –  who have long claimed to hold the secret formula and panacea to transforming average salespeople into top performers are deeply flawed. It’s time to unveil the truth and expose the broken system that hinders true sales success. Brace yourself team for a reality check as I share some alarming facts and stati ..read more

In the ever-changing, increasingly challenging world of rural sales, training is crucial to ensure your sales team remain relevant and performs to their highest potential. However, the traditional sales training industry – aka. Auckland and Sydney-based cookie-cutter franchise types –  who have long claimed to hold the secret formula and panacea to transforming average salespeople into top performers are deeply flawed. It’s time to unveil the truth and expose the broken system that hinders true sales success. Brace yourself team for a reality check as I share some alarming facts and stati ..read more

In the ever-changing, increasingly challenging world of rural sales, training is crucial to ensure your sales team remain relevant and performs to their highest potential. However, the traditional sales training industry – aka. Auckland and Sydney-based cookie-cutter franchise types –  who have long claimed to hold the secret formula and panacea to transforming average salespeople into top performers are deeply flawed. It’s time to unveil the truth and expose the broken system that hinders true sales success. Brace yourself team for a reality check as I share some alarming facts and stati ..read more

Win rates have been on a constant decline for years now. Research shows any deals over $100,000 are won at an average of 17%. That’s less than 1 in 5. Price or feature parity exists, products and services are almost identical and the only thing that differentiates the deal is the buyer experience. That means you Mr Salesperson. Often you are the most important part of the sales process. How you show up, prepare, plan, question, probe, quality and clarify will distinguish between a good or bad buyer experience. The problem with most rural sales teams is that they are getting worse, not better ..read more

Research shows that the average sales rep turnover of 34% is twice that of any other career discipline (15%). Sales can be brutal on the frontline so this makes sense. But continual turnover can really hurt and harm your rural business from the cost of re-recruiting, re-training, lost productivity, business interruption, management time re-ramping and customer dissatisfaction. Being on a treadmill of turnover is not where you want your rural business to be. We all know how frustrating it is when your key point of contact with a business you like and buy from continual changes. It creates a lac ..read more

The traditional sales training system is inherently broken. Role playing hypothetical generic sales situations are not going to help your rural sales team win. Generic, cookie-cutter sales training peddled by a US franchise model will do your rural business more harm than good. They always say “once bitten, twice shy” so you can triple that for your rural sales team who are going to hate you and your choice of sales training if you put them in the wrong room with the wrong trainer. Here are the 7 red flags you need to watch out for before you ever appoint a sales trainer to help your rural sal ..read more