Todd Youngblood
Todd Youngblood
Todd Youngblood is passionate about sales productivity. His 3+ year career in Executive Management, Sales, Marketing and Consulting has focused on selling more, better, cheaper and faster. He established The YPS Group, Inc. in 1999 based on his years of experience in Sales Process Engineering – that is, combining creativity and discipline in the design, implementation and use of work processes for highly effective sales teams.
Value, Value Stream, Flow, Pull, Perfection
Manufacturing executives said it didn't apply to them. (They were dead wrong.) Software development executives said it didn't apply to them. (They were dead...
All Sales Reps Should Blog
Dave Brock is smart guy. If you're in sales, you'll find consistent value and solid thinking in his blog. Most times I...
Radio – A Whole New Ball Game
It's happened to me again… A whole chunk of my knowledge about sales and marketing just got blown up; has become utterly obsolete....
Forget About “The Buyer’s Journey”
Don't get me wrong. The notion of "The Buyer's Journey" was a great leap forward – was. It remains extremely useful as a concept...
OK, So I Exaggerated A Bit
Yeah, OK, I'll admit to exaggeration in the title of my recent "Death of All Sales Reps" post. Anthony Iannarino called me on...
“Death Of All Sales Reps”
Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman has been one of my personal favorite plays for years. The tragic figure of Willy Loman has...
On Funnels, Incubators & Out-Of-Context Metaphors
I've been in a running debate with my colleague, Stone Payton, for about a year now regarding the value and continuing applicability of the...
The 3 Keys To Success
Achieving success is really a very simple thing. It's a three piece puzzle. 1) You need to be smarter than the competition. That doesn't...
Innumeracy – Are Sales Reps The Next Victims?
Innumerate: Unable to understand and use numbers in a calculation. No, this isn’t your new-word-of-the-day podcast. Its a wake-up call. Innumeracy is rapidly and...
Grumbling about the need to do more with less?
You hear the grumbling all the time. From sales reps: "My quota is higher again this year and my territory is smaller. Not only...
How To REALLY Alienate A Customer
Screw-ups happen. Sometimes it's our own goof. Sometimes it's someone else's goof, but we're the party responsible. Sometimes we just happen to...
So Which Are You?
"Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more...
Learn LOTS, Or Don’t Bother
I read a lot. In my view, all business people must read a lot. I seek out the opinions of others a...
An Unintended Consequence (That’s Good,)
A little over a year ago, I started blogging in earnest. I did it based on relentless urgings from the two guys who...
An Indispensable Sales Productivity Tool
Without fail when I talk about E-Rep and the use of social media in B2B sales the, "I don't have the time," issues comes...
Plan Every Sales Call In Writing!
Sometimes, stating the obvious is nothing more than that; merely verbalizing what everybody in the audience already knows. Sometimes, something is...
Customer focus must be ignored at all cost!
"Full Service!" "Total Solution!" "We handle everything!" "We are a customer focused company!" Virtually always, statements like these are a...
Let ‘Em Have It
We've all gotten inadvertently poked in the eye. Ouch X 10! Ain't nothin' quite so painful. Polite people would never, ever...
Do You Listen To Your Customers?
Well, do ya'??? It's so, so easy to say, "Of course! I'm not a silver-tongued devil, I'm a silver-eared devil." OK, let's say you actually...
Give Me More Discipline & Accountability!
A comment on one of my recent posts about forecasting really got me thinking. Here's the comment, "Managers, grow a backbone. Hold...