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Free Ebook "How to Write a Sales Plan" + Free Template

Free Ebook - How to Write a Sales Plan, plus Free Plan Temple

This free ebook walks you through 13 steps that will:

  • Qualify your best prospects in crystal clear profiles
  • Guide your step-by-step prospecting
  • Keep you laser-focused on what really counts
  • Plus FREE Sales Plan Template in Microsoft Word

Enter your email below and click "Download now".


“Revenue-IQ understands what customers want."
– Jeff Clark, V.P. Sales, Weiser Security Services

Walking Backwards: Timeline for Rebids

by Chris Arlen

Why does rebidding a contract you already have come as a surprise? The time just slips up on you, and there it is, an RFP on your desk for one of your [...]

click to continue → November 12, 2010

Sales Plan-o-rama: Revisited

by Chris Arlen
click to continue → October 24, 2010

Don’t Go Under That Bus

by Chris Arlen

You know you’re under the front wheels of the contract cancellation bus when customers place you, their service supplier, in a poor light so they can come out smelling like roses. That [...]

click to continue → October 20, 2010

Blindsided by a Mental Model

by Chris Arlen

This is isn’t about a deranged runway exhibitionist. It’s about suppliers’ frustrations with customers’ behavior in service relationships. Does the following scenario sound familiar? You’re a facility service supplier. You’ve been working [...]

click to continue → October 11, 2010

Mea Culpa – Presentation Mistakes to Avoid

by Chris Arlen

The dumb things I’ve done in sales presentations are legion. This isn’t humility, this is fact. I’ve made these mistakes selling facility services. 14 years later, as a consultant running an RFP [...]

click to continue → September 29, 2010

Dead Shark

by Chris Arlen

Woody Allen as Alvy Singer in Annie Hall: “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we [...]

click to continue → September 15, 2010

Sales Proposal as Change Agent

by Chris Arlen

Change is difficult. It’s difficult to envision, design, and implement. Ask anyone in organizational development. Then there is the sales proposal – the big bid one. Business document by day. Change agent [...]

click to continue → September 11, 2010

Teach Your Children…Business Skills

by Chris Arlen

Look back on your sales career. Think about those critical business skills that really matter. Not how to read a P&L or sandbag a budget. But the real-life interpersonal skills that helped [...]

click to continue → August 27, 2010

4 “BE”s for Selling in the Great Recession

by Chris Arlen

Economic news these days is a jumble of cries about double dip recession and the U.S. succumbing to a Japanese-style “lost decade” with multiple recessions. From the media’s perspective the economy is [...]

click to continue → August 5, 2010

Sales Training 101: POV

by Chris Arlen

If there’s one must-have, die-without sales training, it’s understanding Points of View (POV)…that are not one’s own. POV is the genesis of customers buying, contracting, managing, and changing suppliers. Of contractors selling, [...]

click to continue → July 24, 2010

6 Golden Keys to C-Speak

by Chris Arlen

“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?” (Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver, 1976) Many sales people feel calling on prospects’ C-suite is like confronting Travis on a bad [...]

click to continue → July 13, 2010

Competing with Bigs, Mom-n-Pops & In-Betweens

by Chris Arlen

Facility service contracts don’t exist in a vacuum. There’s always competition. Those you know about, and those that come out of the woods at the 11th hour. Isn’t it tempting to tell [...]

click to continue → June 28, 2010

Who Cares What Sellers Want?

by Chris Arlen

Obviously we do if we’re selling or managing sales. But buyers (aka prospects or customers) have no reason to care. They receive no benefit by helping sales people. As dumb and basic [...]

click to continue → June 17, 2010

Millions Lost: Look at the Dark Side

by Chris Arlen

Service sales are odd, facility service sales even more so. Sales investments are often made on the beginning stages of the sales cycle, i.e. awareness, lead generation, relationships, etc. Most contractors budget [...]

click to continue → June 9, 2010

Using Personas for Prospect Profiles

by Chris Arlen

Better than shooting in the dark, prospect profiles (aka targets or ideal customers) make sales and marketing more successful. They screen out the undesirable and demote the mediocre, making efforts more effective, [...]

click to continue → June 3, 2010

The Point of Perfect Prospects

by Chris Arlen

Some suspects become prospects -and- some prospects become customers. But attaining customerhood isn’t the end. Not all customers are created equal. Some are toxic, some dribble in revenue or profit, and some [...]

click to continue → May 28, 2010

Selling in our Millennium

by Chris Arlen

The bathwater. The baby. New is better. Too frequently a “new” sales practice comes out that’s the next answer for every sales woe (and you should buy the book and attend the [...]

click to continue → May 12, 2010

4 Unbelievable Sales Beliefs

by Chris Arlen

Sales people have strange beliefs. Not you. Some of them though. They must have, judging by their actions with customers. Here are a few interesting ones. What do you think?

click to continue → May 3, 2010

Sales dots

by Chris Arlen

Business is simple. It can be hard, but it’s simple…to understand. Take selling service contracts. Or, managing those who sell them. Or, increasing sales. It all comes down to dots.

click to continue → April 20, 2010

Incremental Fruit & Crowbar Leverage

by Chris Arlen

There is no low hanging fruit. Not anymore. Only incremental improvements You’ve tackled the low hanging and enjoyed the returns. That leaves only incrementals. The good news is you have an infinity [...]

click to continue → April 9, 2010

Head in a Bucket

by Chris Arlen

Moving up the business food chain requires understanding nuances, whether as an employee inside or salesperson from the outside. Yet there are business practices that occur 1,000s of times and we botch [...]

click to continue → April 1, 2010

60,000 to 1

by Chris Arlen

60,000 = a rough ballpark* for the number of words a customer will read when reviewing four to six contractors’ sales proposals. 1 = the number of contractors a customer will select [...]

click to continue → March 26, 2010

First things first – sales effectiveness or efficiency?

by Chris Arlen

As a consultant, I’ve seen an unintentional decision playing out among large  service contractors (those with dedicated sales resources) and smaller firms as well. Most of these firms are committed to improving [...]

click to continue → March 19, 2010

What’s Wrong With You?

by Chris Arlen

I’m recovering from the flu and as you can tell by this post’s title my crankiness hasn’t left. So here are a few gripes about business dealings as seen from the customer’s [...]

click to continue → March 10, 2010

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