Patrick Carroll

Stan was frustrated. He kept getting "shot down on price" during discussions with prospective buyers. He knew he was supposed to talk directly about money issues before making a presentation...but somehow he never seemed to iron out the details in a way that gave him a clear sense of whether the buyer felt his pricing was acceptable. Buyers always seemed to play their cards close to the vest. He decided to ask his manager Phil for help.
"Phil, I keep hitting a brick wall when I start asking about budget. How should I handle the price issue?"
Phil looked up from the spreadsheet he was working on and said, "Have you tried bracketing?"

Marina was having some problems with the opening phases of her sales process. Her early discussions with prospects were rarely productive. She sat down with Fred, her manager, and did some role-playing in the hope of improving her interviewing technique. During the role-play session, Fred shared a strategy Marina hadn't heard of. he called it "stripping line."

Jane, a new sales hire, was settling into her workspace on Friday morning, all ready to celebrate the first quarter in which she’d been able to exceed her revenue target … when she got a voicemail message that made her stomach churn.
Mark, the decision maker at what was supposed to be her largest new account, had left this message for her. Jane noticed that he’d made a point of calling at nine o’clock on Thursday night. Why? It might have been because he hadn’t wanted to reach Jane voice to voice. The message made it clear that Mike was backing out of the deal.

Diane, a recent sales hire, got an email from her manager, Luis, suggesting that he accompany her on an initial sales call with a prospect - and then debrief with her on what he's observed. Diane replied that she thought that was a great idea.

Eliza, a new sales hire, had posted an abysmally low closing ratio in her first 60 days on the job. She was spending most of her time with prospects who ended up picking her brain for advice and information...and then disappearing. Frank, her manager, asked her during a coaching session why she thought that was happening.

"I guess I'm not all that great at presenting yet," Eliza said. "Do you have any suggestions on how I could improve in that area?"

"Well," Frank said, "maybe the issue isn't your presentation skills. Let's walk through what happened in the last discussion you had with someone. How did that go?"

Ryan, a salesperson in his mid-fifties, had hit a performance plateau. His commissions had been flat for the past six months, and he had narrowly missed quota in each of those months. He scheduled a meeting with his manager, Jeannie, to see if, working together, they could identify any steps that would turn this pattern around.

During one of their coaching sessions, Jason asked his manager Ellen if she could think of one area he could work on over the next 30 days that would result in a dramatic and rapid improvement of his closing numbers. He was surprised at how quickly she answered.
 
Ellen suggested: “Learn to speak three more languages.”
 
Jason was confused. His expression said, What on earth do you mean?

Brian, an inside sales rep, spent too much of his time chasing deals that ended up going nowhere. He knew it; his sales manager Francine knew it. Late one Friday afternoon, Francine asked him to give some thought to the matter, and to come up with some ideas about why this was a problem for him.

The two spent an hour-long coaching session the following Monday discussing the possibilities Brian had come up with. The conclusion they reached together was a simple one: Brian wasn’t qualifying effectively. 

Gwen’s closing rate wasn’t looking good; she had missed quota for three consecutive quarters. She asked her manager Eileen for a little help in figuring out what she could do to improve. Among the questions Eileen asked during their one-on-one meeting was this one: “Can I take a look at your proposals?”

Mike’s list of “active” prospects was always long and detailed, and he was sure everyone knew this during his team’s sales meetings. But when his manager Jacqueline did a little digging, she was surprised to learn how few of Mike’s “active” prospects matched up with the ideal sales cycle. Some were taking twice two or three times as long to reach a decision as the prospects
of other salespeople on the team.