In the interest of Halloween and all things creepy and scary, here are four signs your sales team might be zombies. Sales teams can sometimes resemble zombies, driven by habit and lacking strategic thought. These “undead” behaviors slowly drain company profits and undermine customer relationships. Here are four warning signs of brain-hungry habits, along with strategies to counter them. 1. Sale Zombies Don’t Understand Their Customers Successful salespeople align products with customer needs. However, many lack knowledge about how customers make money, their internal costs, or key challenges like labor expenses and material waste. Without these insights, they fail to offer meaningful solutions, missing chances to collaborate with specialists and partners. 2. Sales Zombies Don’t Recognize the Value They Provide Sales growth and commissions are not the real value of a salesperson's work. Strong sellers provide valuable services but often misjudge their economic impact, giving away c...

The higher you move up in an organization, the more out of touch you become with the customer. This is a challenge all leaders face. And while many accept it and do nothing, it doesn’t have to be this way. How can you overcome that risk?  Well, you could lean on a few well-trusted advisors, or your internal management information system (MIS). You could also commission surveys or focus groups. All of these options, while worthwhile, have an inherent bias. The advisors might have a hidden agenda, or pet project to promote. The MIS system has no bias, but the data is only as good as the program. If the data is too “big” you have a different challenge of how to analyze the data. Surveys and focus groups are only as good as the people conducting them, and the participants still have good reasons to present themselves in a positive light. So, what is a caring, customer-centric C-level professional supposed to do? Put on a costume or disguise and masquerade as a customer. That’s right—p...