Eric LaRose, Author at Vx Group

Webinar: Mine Your Sales Data for Gold

Welcome to Mining Your Sales Data for Gold presented by the Vx Group, a discussion on how you can mine your Sales Data for the gold we all seek – ideal customers. A little background about this. A few months ago, we recorded a pilot episode of our podcast, Problems Worth Solving, and we talked a little about the need to create an Ideal Customer Profile. Listening to the finished podcast, we realized that while listeners would walk away knowing what an [...]

5 reasons why your sales job description sucks

It is a job-seekers' employment market. With nationwide unemployment hovering around 3.9%, and the Wisconsin unemployment rate even lower at around 3%, employers are now having a difficult time filling key positions – especially in sales and sales management. But we’ve found the low unemployment rate isn’t the only reason for this. The real issue is poorly written job descriptions. Even when unemployment is low, people are still looking for sales position opportunities. Maybe they don’t like their current job, maybe they [...]

Podcast: Why an Ideal Customer Profile is Important

Welcome to the pilot episode of our first podcast: Problems Worth Solving. In this episode, we discuss how to develop an Ideal Customer Profile and use it to identify new customers. Here's a sample of what you'll hear: When you think about it, there are two kinds of customers, those who buy from you and those who grow with you. Today we’re talking about the latter, specifically how you identify these idea customers, attract them and nurture them. Eric L: So today [...]

The True Cost of a Bad Hire

A highly effective sales team is the backbone of any B2B manufacturing company. From strategic and motivational sales leadership to hungry sellers in the field, each team member plays and important role. But creating this sales dream team is easier said than done, and a bad hire can cost your company in more ways than one, including: Thousands of dollars in lost sales revenue and onboarding costs (up to 30% of employee’s first-year earnings) – Forbes Faster burnout for good employees who [...]

The Pets of the Vx Group

Every member of the Vx Group team has a pet or two waiting for them at home. We thought it would be fun to introduce you to some of them. Daisy & Rigby Owned by: Eric LaRose Breed: Bichon Frise Fun facts: While they look a lot alike, and are around the same age, Daisy and Rigby are not related. Rigby came from a breeder in Western Wisconsin while Daisy is a rescue. Kahlua, Carter & Emmitt Owned by: Dannie Kurz Breed: [...]

5 Ways to Prevent Dealer & Distributor Sales Decay

Are you in the middle of creating a dealer/distributor network or looking for ways to improve your existing network? This network is an important part of your B2B sales process, but it decays if it's not actively managed. Here are five ways you can maintain healthy relationships with all the dealers and distributors you work with. Continual Engagement: Are you nurturing the connection between you and your dealers/distributors? Stay on their radar through frequent engagement. [...]

Webcast – Confessions of a SoFi Junkie

Community banks have long been under attack by national and international financial conglomerates, but the most recent competition comes from a less tangible source – online financial services like SoFi. “Confessions of a SoFi Junkie” is a vibrant discussion on why online banking institutions like SoFi have risen in popularity, the sales and marketing techniques they used to connect with millennial customers and lessons you could learn from the rise of these new-age loan businesses. Recorded on Jan. 25, 2018, this discussion [...]

Vx Group is going to the dogs

It was a cold early-December morning when Vx Group President Eric Zoromski hopped in the pilot’s seat of a plane headed to Rensselaer, IN. His mission: transport a mother dog and her eight pups to their new home in Wisconsin. It was all part of Pilots N Paws, a non-profit organization that matches volunteer pilots and plane owners with rescue dogs in need of transport. “We are all dog lovers at the Vx Group and this is such an important cause for [...]

Download: Vx Group Growth Goal Calculator

We want 2018 to be a great year for you and your company, and to support that the Vx Group has developed a free tool you can use to determine how many new customers you need to acquire over the next year to meet your company growth goals. Here’s how it works: Download the calculator and launch it (you’ll need Microsoft Excel) Under Company Information, add your company name and dates. Try to keep your growth goals to a year (Jan. 1-Dec. [...]

How to kickstart sales late in the year

Q4 is a rough period for B2B sales, with many of your customers buried underneath end-of-the-year paperwork. Because of this, there is a tendency to avoid B2B sales altogether late in the year. The way we see it, while this seems like sound logic it’s really a missed opportunity. Yes, it’s correct that your customers are struggling with year-end reports, but you know what would be a great break for them? Talking to you. We’ve found that not only will your customers [...]

5 things that push website visitors away

Companies put a lot of time and effort into getting potential customers to visit their websites. From search engine optimization to pay-per-click, print and website ads, social media strategies, search engine marketing, backlinking and blogging strategies, most businesses use every trick in the book to boost visits. But what are your visitors seeing once the click through to your site? When people visit your website, they are looking for information. If they don’t find it, or you make it hard for them [...]

3 ways to add value to every sales meeting

Sales meetings can be a lot of things: intimidating, rewarding, complicated, etc. But there are times when everyone starts thinking: “I am adding nothing to this meeting.” There are several ways you can add value to any sales meeting. First, don’t pretend you know everything. There is no shame in asking for clarification. Many times these discussions lead to new ideas, better processes and so on. Fast Company recently published an article on this subject. You can see more meeting tips here. [...]

4 things to avoid when selling yourself

You may know your company’s product lines backwards and forwards, but the simple truth about sales is your customers are buying from you. If they don’t like you, there’s a good chance they won’t buy from you. Many forget that during every sales meeting, one of the products you are selling is: you. During the small-talk portion of every sales meeting, there’s a chance to sell yourself by answering the simple questions almost everyone asks. We’ve put together a few examples [...]

Treat sales like a jet engine

We’ve had a lot of clients express the desire for a short-term sales boost, and our canned response is that there are few levers you can pull besides price to increase sales in the next 30-90 days. You can read more about that here and here. Oddly enough, we’ve also heard of companies with the exact opposite problem – the sales department is crushing it so hard that production and engineering can’t keep up. Sales is often pressured to “slow down” by [...]

Using bullshit for good: what we can learn from fake news

We live in the era of fake news, sensationalized reporting, elevated threat levels and common household items that you use every day that could kill you in your sleep. There’s a nice, short way of describing these things: bullshit. And while bullshit is negatively portrayed, there is such a thing as good bullshit. Bullshit is simply a misdirection. Like a magician getting the audience to focus on his left hand while he hides the rabbit with his right, bullshit - when used [...]

About Eric LaRose