Inside Sales
The Academics of Selling and Women in Sales Leadership
I recently sat down with Stefanie Boyer, a professor at Bryant University, to discuss the academic side of selling, the importance of women in sales leadership roles, and how practice makes perfect in a selling career. While working on her dissertation for her PhD, Stefanie studied how to train people more effectively in sales.…
Read MoreLessons in Conversation from Forensic Interrogation Specialist Michael Reddington
One of the most critical aspects of a sales rep’s role is being able to effectively guide conversation and uncover information through good questioning techniques. There are many ways to unpack this topic, but I thought it would be interesting to look at questioning, or interrogation, from another perspective. To do so, I sat down…
Read MoreWhat Are You Really Selling?
When asked the question, “What do you sell?” most sellers think about a product or a service with some sort of tangible benefit or ROI. They think about a “thing” they offer as a solution and the business or financial benefit attached to it. But that’s not what reps are actually selling – what you…
Read MoreHow to Identify the Political Structure within Your Prospects and Accounts
Whether you’re prospecting, cold calling, or trying to grow business within existing accounts, political structure plays a huge part in winning sales opportunities. We all know there are several roles in the decision making process: the coach, gatekeeper, influencer, evaluator, or ultimate decision maker. I sat down with Tom Stanfill, CEO and Co-Founder of ASLAN,…
Read MoreLessons in Selling with Art Shamsky of the ‘69 Mets World Series Team
There are many similarities between selling and sports – many overlaps and common lessons shared, particularly between baseball and sales. As anyone familiar with ASLAN knows, we are big fans of sports analogies and references. I was fortunate enough to sit down last week with Art Shamsky, former Major League Baseball player and member of…
Read MoreEngage More Sales Prospects with GAP Questions
We recently put out a blog titled The #1 Sales Lesson from Kramer, for all of our Seinfeld fans. We highlighted Kramer’s questioning technique in the episode “The Keys,” where he attempts to persuade George to move to California with him. I sat down with our CEO, Tom Stanfill, to take this topic a step…
Read MoreTales from the Frontlines of Selling with Chris White
Every so often, we like to highlight stories from front-line sellers and sales trainers to discuss the practical applications of ASLAN’s philosophy and methodology. I recently sat down with Chris White, speaker, sales expert, Founder of Tech Sales Advisors, and bestselling author of The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers, to unpack his own…
Read MoreYour Position, Not Your Product, Gets the Meeting and Makes the Sale
One of the toughest parts of the sales cycle is simply getting in the door. It’s often a challenge for salespeople to get a meeting. And once you do have the meeting, how can you use the time you have to connect your solution to your customer’s problem. Fortunately, our CEO Tom Stanfill has a…
Read MoreTales from the Frontlines of Selling with John Ferguson
As we continue to conduct our sales training workshops virtually, we’re meeting and engaging with sales reps from all over the country and the world. Everyone seems to be in agreement that virtual selling will be in place, in some shape, form, or fashion, for the foreseeable future. Many reps are still on complete lockdown,…
Read MoreEffective One-on-One Interactions in a Virtual Sales Environment
As a continuation of our blog about the lasting impact of virtual selling on market dynamics, the sales process, and team selling, I wanted to unpack the effects (and the importance of) on one-to-one sales interactions. The capabilities and skills required to sell virtually are different. Especially for field sellers learning to adapt to a…
Read More