065: The future of selling = more sales with less sales people

“We’re going to have less sales people than ever before … 60% or more of the sale is already done by the time a sales person is contacted.”

- Tom Niesen, CEO, Acuity Systems

On this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Tom Niesen, CEO of Acuity Systems, who spent 14 years in upper sales management and marketing positions with companies like Polaroid and Fuji Film before starting Acuity Systems, Inc. in 1990. At those companies he built sales teams and began to understand how and why sales teams failed, the difference between effective sales processes and what just sounded good, and what it really took to create a superstar sales force.

Today, he blends his own experiences with nationally proven training and evaluation tools from The Sandler Sales Institute, Objective Management Group, and Extended DISC, to teach a unique brand of sales training and personal development. It's so unique - and so engaging - that Niesen closes his own prospects at a rate that would make most salespeople green with envy.

Podcast Topics Include:

• Tom shares how he closes his own prospects in a way that would make most sales people green with envy
• Sales should be looked at as a science and is better referred to as lean selling (similar to lean manufacturing)
• Building solid foundation for sales and having the right processes and behaviors in place to support your sales team
• What “going into the cooler” means
• Goodhart’s Law: When one measurement becomes a goal, it’s a bad goal
• Culture issues that affect sales and how to change those processes
• Creating a “sales map” without the sale person
• Effective vs non-effective sales training
• Tom’s view on the 2017 Q4 Vistage CEO confidence report
• How to get better at interpersonal communication and rapport building with the rising workforce of a younger generation
• Using a pattern interrupt strategy in communications and sales
• Using improv in the sales approach
• Having an upfront contract about how you work
• How to have a superstar sales force
• Emerson’s Law of Compensation

Full Show Notes