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.

One of the topics being discussed in my Understanding the Sales Force Blog this week was how often the reason for the prospect’s inability to make a decision is because of the solution we presented.

This past week I experienced two examples of practice that, if applied to selling, would dramatically alter your results for the better.

There are many approaches to selling larger accounts and in this week’s Baseline Selling Tip you’ll get mine.

Like most young children, when our son was eighteen months old he began having temper tantrums, peaking when he was three and thankfully, now that he is six, he stages them far less frequently. He is very stubborn and once he committed to the tantrum he would never, ever back down. When he was younger, the tantrums wouldn’t end until he fell asleep! Later, when he could begin to understand us, we could finally ask, “Would you like to start over?” Later still, he would finally ask us, “Can we start over?”

A reader asked how much time should be spent on each base path in Baseline Selling. That certainly differs by industry, salesperson and prospect but I can provide you with a few guidelines.