Practical Wisdom from Kahle Way Sales Systems

Over my career as a sales expert, I’ve personally and contractually worked with over 500 sales organizations. I’ve learned some things.  Here’s one:  Very few chief sales officers have a good handle on the economics of the sales force.  And very few entrepreneurs think about the economics of a sales system.

          Almost everyone can tell you what the amounts of the various categories on a P&L statement indicate.  So, sales salaries, expenses, advertising costs, etc. are readily at hand.  However, very few decision makers dig deeper.  And that means that significant information is never uncovered, and decisions are made on the basis of superficial, and often flawed, information.  Let’s dig deeper.

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Rapid change is not a phase we're passing through; it's a process in which we're engaged. That means it is likely that the conclusions, paradigms and core beliefs upon which we based our decisions just two or three years ago are likely to be obsolete today.  Even more sobering, the conclusions and strategies which we develop today will be obsolete in a couple of years.  

        There is only one strategy that will see us through:  Mastering the competency of changing ourselves and our organizations as quickly as the world is changing around us.  That’s a skill I call Purposeful Learning

The only sustainable effective response to a rapidly changing world is cultivating the ability to positively transform ourselves and our organizations.  That's the definition of self-directed learning.

Should your company allow every salesperson to have their own style of selling, or should you have a selling system to which everyone adheres?  Let’s dig into this.

How to Sell Anything to Anyone Anytime -- Learn more here.

The Excellence & Influence Course for Sales Leaders -- Learn more

In the B2B world, the relationship between the customer and the vendor, and more specifically, the vendor’s salesperson, can be of utmost importance.  It doesn’t take long in the business to understand that if the customer dislikes you, he is rarely going to see you.  And if he does know you and trust you, he is more likely to do business with you.  Creating positive business relationships with all of your customers and prospects is, then, a fundamental step in the path toward success for any B2B salesperson.

Having said that, the existence of positive business relationships is one of the primary hindrances to success for the typical field salesperson.  I know that seems like a contradiction, but let’s dissect how this works.

The Excellence & Influence Course for Sales Managers

In order for an individual or a society to reach its potential, it must continuously grow and develop. That requires consistent, methodical exposure to new ideas. Unfortunately, many people have arrested their development by remaining within their status quos. 

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It’s more and more popular to blame other people, or some ‘ism’ for your own circumstances.  As long as we claim to be a victim we’ll never achieve our potential. As soon as we accept personal responsibility for our own circumstances, we gain the freedom to change them.

Check out the XI (Excellence & Influence) On line community here.

The recent proliferation of AI (Artificial Intelligence) has surfaced a lingering issue: If we can create software to increase the capabilities of a computer, can we not create software to increase the capabilities of the greatest computer we know of – our minds? Let’s drill deeply into this.

Menta-Morphosis mind software is in the XI Community.  Learn more here.

With a little bit of preparation and a thoughtful approach, sales meetings can be powerful meaningful events.  Here’s how to make that happen.

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To grow your business, you must develop the discipline to adhere to certain regular practices.  The first of these is investing your time into your business in a methodical, intentional way.  Let's examine this together. 

Are there best practices for salespeople?  Or, does every salesperson develop his/her ‘own style of selling?” How you answer that question can impact a sales force and a salesperson' career. Join with me as I dig into this key question. 

The Kahle Way Wholesaler/Distributor Selling System

The Kahle Way B2B Selling System

Are there best practices for salespeople?  Or, does every salesperson develop his/her ‘own style of selling?” How you answer that question can impact a sales force and a salesperson' career. Join with me as I dig into this key question. 

The Kahle Way Wholesaler/Distributor Selling System

The Kahle Way B2B Selling System

:  “So, what do you think you can do for us?”  The CEO had finally gotten to that question after a couple of hours of introduction to his company and their specific marketing problem. 

          They had a successful company, selling acoustic panels through architects for buildings that had a sound problem.  A year or so ago, they had developed a new product – a computer-operated sign board that allowed building managers to list events and meetings, and to easily change those as needed.  The product had taken a year to develop and the company had poured all its excess financial resources into it – a couple of hundred thousand dollars.  Now, they were having difficulty selling the product, and had no money to invest in a sales and marketing system.

          I answered his question.  “Nothing.  I can’t make something out of nothing.  If you have no money to invest in the system to sell this new product, I can’t do anything for you.”

          Unfortunately, their situation is not unique. 

I’m often asked to help a company refine their sales force compensation plans.  As a consulting company, that’s work that we regularly do.  I believe in having a well-designed, effectively managed compensation plan as a fundamental part of any productive sales system. 

          But it’s a mistake to think that the compensation plan is the entire solution.  It’s only a part.

The Kahle Way Sales Management System Course. Learn More Here.

If you want to improve the productivity of your organization, and particularly your sales team, focus first on the structure.  When you change the structure, you change the behavior of the people who operate within that structure.  Let me explain.

If you want to improve your sales results, first focus on the quantity and quality of sales calls.  While this may sound blatantly obvious, it’s often neglected, and more rarely ever the focus of an organization’s efforts. Yet, it’s the keystone event in the sales process.

The Kahle Way B2B Selling System

In our surveys, CEOs indicate “on the job” training as the predominant method of developing salespeople.  If everyone is doing it, it must be OK, right?

Maybe not.  Let’s look a little closer.

The Kahle Way B2B Selling System 

I’m afraid for the future of our country. I’m afraid because I believe that the discipline of thinking before we act – in every circumstance and level of society -- is rapidly disappearing.  In its place, we are witnessing a whole host of alternatives. It is like thousands of years of human development has been shrugged to the side, and a new ethic of rushing to conclusions with little objective basis has replaced it.  We are regressing to the Middle Ages.

One of the most common complaints I hear from my clients is this:  “I can’t seem to motivate the sales people to call on prospects and develop them into new customers.”

          There is a relatively simple, fun and inexpensive way to remedy this situation.  It’s called a sales blitz.  Unfortunately, few companies are even aware of it, and fewer yet use it.

The Sels Master's Approach to Acquiring New Customers

Growing your sales is a goal for almost every business. The challenge is so great, however, that it spawns lots of mis-guided methods. Here are the four most common mistakes sales leaders make from a consultant who has worked with hundreds of them.

: “Can you boil down your advice to one word?”

          That’s what a seminar participant asked me.  “No,” I said, “but I can boil it down to three:  Focus, focus, focus.”  I said that because I see ‘focus’ as the solution to a number of modern dilemmas.