When an opportunity has an extra zero or two at the end, what do you do differently to earn the business? Are you more polite, respectful cautious, aggressive, intimidated, or observant? Do you ask more questions, better questions, fewer questions? Do you spend your time answering questions, talking about your value proposition, company and expertise?

There has been an ongoing debate about the death of the sales call, the death of the sales force and the eventual death of selling. You can read the latest installment on my Blog, Understanding the Sales Force.

You probably know Jeffrey Gitomer, author of the Little Red Book of Selling and a syndicated columnist in many business journals. In this week’s column, Gitomer presented five internal senses required for having a sense of selling. The great part of writing my own weekly column is that I can disagree with what he writes!

I get many calls and emails asking for help – and that’s good! One of the things I’ve observed over the years is that most salespeople, when they’re struggling some, don’t know why they’re struggling. I thought that today I would share my simple formula for helping salespeople discover where in their selling process the problem is hiding.

What separates sales superstars from the salespeople who simply reach their goals and those who struggle and under achieve? In today’s clip I’ll share both the 21 Sales Competencies as well as some Best Practices.

That’s right. Never miss your goal, target or number again. Today I’ll show you how.

This week, Major League Baseball held its annual Home Run Derby. A fan favorite, this event features some of the mightiest sluggers to play the game. Now a three round affair, it has an amazing similarity to Sales.

I spent much of Saturday and Sunday of this past weekend pitching to our five-year old son, who is just nuts over baseball. He not only wants to improve so he can hit more home runs, but he just plain loves playing.

In every sales call there comes a point where nothing is going to happen unless the salesperson does something. It could be the point where you haven’t heard any compelling reasons. It could be the point where you need to qualify your prospect. It could be the point where you need to close. It could be the point where you need to build value. It could be some other point.

A salesperson called me last week and complained that every once in a while a prospect asks a tough question or gives an objection that stumps him and he just didn’t have the magic to turn things around. As a result, the call ended without a sale and it’s difficult to get back in and turn things around.