Selling in a “53% Bad” World… and How Sales Reps Should Evolve
So, what actually works in an environment where customers already distrust sales reps?
Not a better pitch.
Better behavior.
Urgency Comes From What’s at Stake for the Buyer
reat reps “wallow in the pain”—not in a negative way, but in a disciplined, curious way where you resist the urge to move too quickly to solutions. Instead of uncovering one or two issues and jumping to how you can help, these great reps ask questions that help them really understand what’s sitting below the waterline.
The Commodity Trap
And when every seller enters late in the buying process and focuses on:
• The product
• The specs
• The quote
• The budget
…the buying experience feels the same across every vendor.
When the experience feels the same, buyers default to the only clear differentiator left:
Price.
Worst “Kate” Scenario
But too much optimism can actually derail a deal.
Most deals don’t fall apart because the customer suddenly changes their mind.
They fall apart because of issues that weren’t anticipated early enough:
Every Sales Rep Needs a Coach
Top performers still need their manager. Just not in the way many managers think.
Fill the Bucket Before You Fix the Leak
I see this all the time with reps who aren't using an insight selling model. They are just peddling whatever they sell, and they waste a lot of time having conversations with potential customers that end too quickly because they jumped at the first problem they heard.
Critical Thinking: The Sales Superpower
Selling success today is not about who has the best tech stack, manufacturing equipment, supply chain, software, or processes. It's about who has the best brain.
When Automation Goes Wrong
Automation should make things easier — not colder, not stricter, not more rigid.
The companies that win are the ones who blend smart systems with accessible humans, and who treat feedback as an upgrade path, not an inconvenience.
When Experience Becomes a Cage: Why Some Long-Tenured Sales Reps Fear Change
I spend a lot of time coaching seasoned sales professionals — people who have weathered recessions, survived industry disruption, and sold through eras most younger reps have only read about. You’d think that level of resilience would also translate to adaptability. And yet, some of the most experienced reps are the ones who struggle the hardest to change how they sell.
Prospecting Has Never Been Harder… or Easier. The Difference Is How You Do It.
Here’s where most reps fall apart: they confuse “prospecting” with “sending a few emails.” Effective prospecting uses multi-channel communication—phone, email, LinkedIn, voicemail, video, and sometimes direct mail—with enough compression to build momentum.
A Much Overlooked Strategy for Achieving Your Goals
January 8, 2026, by Kate Dunn, President of the Evolve Sales Group When we talk about hitting 2026 sales and productivity goals, we often obsess over CRMs, compensation plans, training decks, and marketing funnels — all vitally important things. But here’s the...
Evolve Sales Group Named RMX Network Vendor of the Year
For more information contact: Lyndsay Shipley Community Engagement Manager 636-537-0555 lyndsay@rmx-network.com PRESS RELEASE Evolve Sales Group's Kate Dunn Named RMX Network Vendor of the Year St. LOUIS, MO— September 13, 2024 - Kate Dunn,...
Breaking Barriers in B2B Sales: Why Your Most Seasoned Reps are Resistant to Change and How to Help Them Adapt
Like other sectors, the printing industry is navigating a significant transformation in how B2B buyers interact with sellers. A key hurdle to growth is the resistance often seen among seasoned sales representatives when embracing fresh sales methodologies. This...
The Power of Curiosity
When you are curious, you ask better questions and understand situations at a very deep level. It helps you find unique ways to fix problems and it offers real value to your customers. Learn more about how curiosity is the key to improved sales performance.
Story 5: Good People, Bad Process
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, the Rehab Center Medical Director told me that he wanted to release my mom by December 1st, ushering in another mad dash to figure out what to do. Before I left Mom that morning, I started calling the assisted living facilities...
Story 4: Uniforms, Quacking, and the Kind of Employees Who Notice Things
Once my mom’s sodium levels returned to normal, the hospital discharged her to a Rehabilitation facility to hopefully get some strength back. One of the many drive-by visits we received in the hospital was from the patient advocate. She gave me a list of rehab...
Story 3: Culture Isn’t a Buzzword
The hospital was a little better than the emergency room, but not much. My mom saw a steady stream of doctors, starting with the kidney specialist who was working on her sodium levels. Because she had gotten an MRI and CT scan through the ER, she had visits from...
Story # 2: Unhappy Employees and Broken Systems
Local Hospital Emergency Room: My mom was staying with me, and her legs just gave out. We decided to head to the Emergency Room of a local hospital and ensure she hadn't injured something in the fall. Within a few minutes in the ER, she was diagnosed with low...
Story 1: Problem Solving and Preparation
Originally Published on LinkedIn on April 5, 2024 My Mom was a little dynamo. She walked two miles multiple days a week, ran a bible study class, was a prison minister, and a lector at church. She had a cough for six months before her diagnosis. She went to her...
Conflict Resolution
A Cautionary Tale Originally posted on LinkedIn October 23, 2023 Yesterday, I received a call from an owner who doesn’t usually call outside her weekly coaching session, so I picked up immediately. She related a story about two employees having a verbal...
Productive At-Bats
Originally published on LinkedIn on September 15, 2020 I come from a long line of baseball fans. We aren’t just your average hot dog-eating, beer-drinking variety of fans either. We care about the history, the strategy, the statistics, and the nuances. We’ve lost...
Old Dog, New Tricks
Set goals for your sales rep or reps for 2024. The goals should represent an increase over 2023. Your rep or reps are supposed to sell. Simply maintaining existing accounts is only half of their job.
Selling on Price
Selling value means reps have to do research. They need to understand the challenges their customers face and the opportunities available to them. They need to understand business – how their customers make money, where they can improve employee productivity and how they increase profitability.
AI, Omnichannel Marketing, and Summer Slumps
Answers to questions on how sales reps can use AI, how to adjust to changing B2B buying patterns, the importance of omnichannel lead generation and how to avoid a sales slump in the summer.
Younger Reps Not Making the Cut? It’s Time to Change the Ending of the Story
All of the research points to one conclusion – sales training and coaching are essential for your sales reps and the health of your business. By properly investing in training and coaching, businesses can hire top talent and help them succeed. Small business owners don’t have the time to develop a training and coaching program to deliver specific sales results. Half-hearted training results in sellers who don’t use a defined process, don’t know how to differentiate their company, don’t know how to self-correct when things aren’t working, and don’t deliver the sales results their companies need.
Sales Rep Development and Dealing with a Looming Recession
Sales Reps need ongoing development to remain productive as buyer's needs change and in a disrupted economy.
Post-Sales Engagement: The New “Must Have” Sales Process
A strong post-sale engagement process is essential for companies looking to grow existing account revenue. In today’s world, the process extends beyond ensuring your customer is happy with the delivered project. It offers businesses a way to demonstrate their...
Questions on AI and Sales Compensation Plans
The most significant impact on sales productivity from these tools will be generating prospecting emails and LinkedIn posts. Most of the reps I coach struggle with writing. Some have trouble thinking about what they want to say; some can’t write coherent sentences using correct grammar; some type in all caps – it’s a myriad of problems. AI tools will make it easier for reps to write, and that will help them prospect using email and LinkedIn.
Owners Want to Know
When a rep starts, especially one without experience selling print in your area, activities are more important than sales.
Hiring Sales Reps
Hiring sales reps can be a challenging process. Your company needs reps who can sell in today’s environment and represent your company well in the marketplace. Industry experience is great, but finding sales reps who are passionate, willing to learn, and a good fit for your company culture is more important.
Happiness
Has the disruption since the pandemic started in 2020 caused you to lose a spark? Are you finding it more difficult to take on the serious challenges in your business and easier to keep on doing the same old things? Are you engaged in developing your own business and its culture or are you just focused on getting to the end of another day?
Qualifying Opportunities
It's more challenging to sell today than it once was, and a lot of reps claim it isn’t fun anymore. But those reps haven’t evolved; they haven’t continued to improve their skills or sales process. For the reps who have evolved, they are still selling and having fun doing it.
Resignation, Regret, and Lessons Learned
There is a sequel to The Great Resignation known as The Great Regret. There are some lessons that owners can take away from both phenomena to ensure they are doing everything possible to keep employees engaged and attract great talent. The Great Resignation The...
Positivity in Sales: A Choice, Not a Feeling
There are positive sales reps and there are negative sales reps. There always have been but the negative ones seem to be spiraling given the chaos since 2020. Here's a couple of things I've seen with reps that contribute to...
Shooting Yourself in the Foot
I previously posted an article about how to tap into what motivates each sales rep on your team. In this article I’m going to talk about things that owners do, often unintentionally, that de-motivate their sellers. When I graduated from college, I had planned to go...
It’s Not Always the Money
Everyone thinks that sales reps are motivated by money but while some are, many are not. In my work in the printing industry, I often find reps who say they are motivated by money but won’t invest more time in selling or learning to facilitate earning more. If all...
