The Ohio Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at Youngstown State University is partnering with Keylan Management Group to offer a workshop to address topics essential for success in sales. For over thirty years, the Ohio SBDC at YSU has accelerated business growth, helped to create jobs and contributed to the economy by providing consulting and training [...]
Be Intentional Consider blocking out time in your calendar throughout the week for business development and “show up” just as you would with an actual meeting. Develop COIs (Centers of Influence) and leverage your professional network Tier 1 COIs – these are contacts within your network where you have built a relationship. Spend time with this [...]
What is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system? These systems are cloud-based programs that allow sales reps to perform a variety of functions such as loading prospects from a Microsoft Excel or .CSV file, entering sales activities, maintaining pipeline by sales stage, updating notes and contact information for prospects, clients, and Centers of Influence (COI), and [...]
If your salespeople are like most, from time to time they struggle with attaining their sales goals. And, they may offer a number of reasons for this including: Pricing Competition Too few leads Quota is too large And so on….. Some of these, all of these or none of these may be true. What is true, [...]
What stands in the way of growing your small business? Is it a lack of capital? Is it limited time? Do you need more expertise? Let’s face it: it’s all of these to one extent or another, right? So, call me Captain Obvious but there is a point to this: you have the means to address [...]
There are a lot of good articles for business owners about time management. They promote the virtues of setting priorities, delegating and tracking time. The Small Business Administration even offers training on Time Management. There are countless books on the topic written by respected authors like Stephen Covey and David Allen. The goal of time management [...]
The dictionary defines process as a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. You are familiar with many kinds of processes: manufacturing processes, quality assurance processes, invoicing processes, etc. What about a sales process? “The B2B, or business-to-business, sales process simply refers to the series of events, phases, or steps [...]
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, about half of small businesses survive five years. A recent internet search for articles about the challenges small businesses face yields quite a few results. There are useful pieces on trends such as found in USA Today as well as articles like “The 6 Toughest Problems for Every Small Business [...]
Resolution: a firm decision to do or not to do something. While 2019 is a new year, there is nothing new about New Year’s resolutions. According to Sarah Pruitt of History.com, “the ancient Babylonians are said to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago.” It’s interesting that a tradition [...]
Recently Rex Ryan, former NFL coach and current ESPN football analyst, spoke about the priorities of the Green Bay Packers’ yet-to-be-named new head coach. The team, with 5 wins, 7 losses and 1 tie has not performed to its potential and had suddenly fired long time coach, Mike McCarthy, without waiting until season’s end. Ryan, known [...]