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Mastering Carefrontation: Avoiding the Pitfall of Brutal Honesty
When it comes to Carefrontation, being honest and direct is essential, but there’s a fine line between candor and cruelty. One of the most common pitfalls sales professionals encounter is mistaking Carefrontation for brutal honesty. In the rush to provide feedback or challenge ideas, it can be easy to come off as overly…
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Driving Value in a Selective Market
Navigating today’s cautious spending environment requires a sharp focus on cost efficiency and clear value delivery. While some budgets are set to grow, decision-makers are prioritizing ROI from prior investments, making every deal more scrutinized. This puts added pressure on us to highlight not only how our solutions…
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What exactly is Carefrontation?
Carefrontation isn’t just about how we communicate. It’s about the mindset we bring to every interaction. At its core, it’s a commitment to balance honesty with care, challenge with support, and results with relationships. This approach isn’t confined to leadership roles; it’s a shared responsibility for everyone in an…
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Leading with Empathy
Empathy isn’t just a buzzword. It’s the foundation for building a strong, successful sales culture. At every level of a business, leading with empathy creates an environment where trust, collaboration, and growth thrive. It’s about understanding the pressures and challenges that others face, whether it’s your team juggling…
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MEDDICC Pipeline Diagnostic
Hi Folks, Great to connect with you all. I’m seeking your expertise in locating articles or content related to the MEDDICC Pipeline Diagnostic. I recall coming across something on this topic previously, but unfortunately, I can’t seem to find it now. If anyone has suggestions or can point me in the right direction, I’d…
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The Key to Confidence Under Pressure
As the saying goes, “The difference between stress and pressure is preparedness.” Stress can be paralyzing. It comes when you’re caught off guard or scrambling to react. On the other hand, pressure can be energizing when you’re ready for it, like the comforting weight of a well-placed challenge. Think of it as a weighted…
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Personalization at Scale: Meeting Rising Customer Expectations
I’ve seen firsthand how much personalization influences the buying journey. Today’s customers expect tailored experiences that align with their specific needs, goals, and pain points. With advanced data integration and analytics, we have the tools to meet these expectations, but leveraging them effectively is key. By…
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Encouraging a Growth Mindset
It’s easy to get caught up in chasing results and forget the journey that gets us there. But when we focus only on outcomes, we miss a crucial opportunity to foster growth, both in ourselves and in those around us. Encouraging a growth mindset means embracing challenges, learning from mistakes, and constantly seeking…
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Delivering clear and constructive feedback
The most important part to get right with Carefrontation is creating a feedback loop that actually has an impact. There are two really big issues with feedback delivery that occur in most organizations. It either, A, gets delivered too harsh where it’s impossible to hear where growth can be achieved because it just sounds…
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Close the Excuse Department Door and Open the Door to Growth
Here’s the thing—excuses might make you feel better in the moment, but they won’t get you anywhere. When things aren’t going well, it’s tempting to lean on reasons why: the market is tough, the lead list wasn’t great, timing didn’t work out. I get it. But I’ve been in sales long enough to know that real growth starts when…
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Build trust through authenticity
If you want people to be vulnerable and share the hard truths, you’ll likely have to lead the way. This is easier when your manager has set the standard, but you can still impact team culture as an individual contributor. Here are three ways that you can help create a culture of better communication, no matter what level…
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Buyer Alignment is Non-Negotiable
Aligning with your buyers isn’t just a best practice - it’s essential. I recently read this article here on Ascender and had to jump in and reiterate the importance of this for Q4. We’re in the final quarter of the year, our buyers are facing pressures to justify every investment, and they need partners who understand…
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Embracing Radical Candor (or Carefrontation)
I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about Radical Candor, the concept popularized by Kim Scott. If you’re not familiar, it’s about caring personally while challenging directly, creating an environment where feedback is both kind and straightforward. There’s a real balancing act that we need to consider when…
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The Power of Practice
Staying at the top of our sales game requires the same level of dedication as elite athletes. Just like the pro players hit the gym after hours or run extra drills when the stands are empty, we have to commit to practicing our craft when no one is watching. It’s the work you put in after the workday that separates the good…
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Good questions to ask
I just saw this on LinkedIn and thought it was worth sharing.
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How Do You Prep Others to Join Your Sales Calls?
Would love to hear ways you like to make sure everyone joining a call with your prospect is prepared. We shared some tips in this article. Share the ones you would add!
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Take the Stairs: The Only Path to Real Success
Last week, I shared a quick video about how the only way to get to the top is to climb. Throughout my career, I've learned there are no shortcuts to success. You can’t bypass the grind, skip the failures, or leap past the challenges. The truth is, there’s no elevator to success—every step you take is necessary, and every…
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Value pyramid
I am looking for materials or examples regarding Value Pyramids. Can someone help or is something planned here within Ascender?
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Relationship Mapping Tools
What tools are folks using for building usable relationship maps? I’d like to mimic the example provided in the Ascender Account Planning training module (attached). Haven’t been able to find a good way to create in this format with color coding and key detail. Any thoughts and direction are greatly appreciated. Thank you.…
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What are some resources you're looking for?
We're always on the lookout for ideas on webinars and resources to build. We just saw a great discussion today and are looking into a relationship map and whether or not we can build one for Ascender use! What are some ideas you have for us that you'd like to see completed?
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Best Ways to Follow Up
This is one of my favorite topics to write about because I think it's an often overlooked way you can differentiate yourself as a salesperson. Curious to hear others' tips on following up on sales meetings.
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Objection Handling
What’s the best rebuttal for “ we heard about your company and we aren’t impressed. Our friend said she used you and she wasn’t happy with the process but she enjoys the process.”
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Templates?
I'm curious if anyone has some standard document templates for the following: Account Plan Opportunity Qualifier (MEDDICC) Meeting Planner I'm building a team and have the opportunity to set the standard to build from. I'd rather edit good existing templates than create my own from scratch. Thank you! Lance @Joe Huber
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Prospects withholding details of pain
We have a new logo team of mostly young sellers. They are mostly new to Force Management and are improving. We are noticing a trend of prospects withholding hard numbers. An AE had a call yesterday with a COO of a small company (under 200 employees). The first TED question around the pain was answered a bit vaguely as…
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Reducing Buyer’s Remorse: Creating a Differentiated Buying Experience
This article calls out a trend that many of us have noticed with customers increasingly preferring a self-serve form of purchasing with less interaction with an actual rep. Unassisted buying can often lead a higher purchase regret. This can be avoided by offering a more meaningful, differentiated buying experience. In the…
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Attaching your solution to a business problem/initiative
What is the best approach to determine who to speak with that holds this information? We sell into construction, and our best initial point of contact isn't usually our champion (lacking influence at big companies). Lets say I've done a good discovery but they can only provide insights into their problems, not the…
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Seller Hygiene: Strategies to Stay at the Top of Your Game
In a recent Audible Ready episode, I shared the importance of staying on top of your game by checking yourself as you prep for your upcoming sales calls, regardless of what stage you’re at as a seller in your career. As elite sellers, maintaining impeccable "seller hygiene" is essential for maximizing your success. For me,…
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The Power of Presence: Embracing Mindfulness When You’re Constantly Busy
In a world that glorifies being busy, it's easy to fall into the trap of constant activity, leaving little room for presence and mindfulness. So much so, that becoming “addicted” to being busy without even realizing it has become the default. I recently came across an insightful article on Zen Habits about being present,…
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Empathy in Sales: Embracing Your Customer’s Pain for Better Solutions
I recently talked about how crucial it is that sellers adopt the "coat of pain" to embrace an outside-in approach, centering on the customer's needs before discussing their solutions. By learning to prioritize their perspective, you shift the focus from your own agenda to truly understanding their pain points. Simply…
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Overcoming being single threaded...
In my opportunities, I often find myself in a situation where there's a central point of contact managing a particular project. When I reach out to others involved in the project, I worry that I might upset this person. Another common scenario is when I ask the point of contact who else I should be talking to, and they…