Many different types of firms have channel partners or others that control a significant part of the actual experience with customers. Automobile companies have dealers, insurance and real estate firms have independent agents, software companies have value-added resellers (VARs), restaurants and hotels have franchises, and heavy equipment manufacturers have resellers. Even the brokers or financial advisors within financial services organizations can act in many ways like these external partners. There’s more… To read the rest of this blog posting click here or visit www.1to1Media.com/weblog. MORE >>

How Your Online Surrogate Should Sell is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino. This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. Your online presence is your surrogate salesperson. She lives there, and she is always working, even when you are sleeping. When your dream clients are looking for you, they find your web presence, your online surrogate. Rule 1: Don’t Be a Pitch Machine. Your online surrogate shouldn’t be a pitch machine. MORE >>

What you do matters. You can’t hurt people and then claim it was a mistake. You can’t be careless and inconsiderate and then not take responsibility for the results of your behavior. Actions have consequences. But actions don’t magically happen all by themselves. Before you ever do something, you think about it. Even if it’s only for the shortest of moments, your brain processes your emotions and any information it has at the time and tells you what you should do. Which is why what you believe in matters. Your beliefs guide your decision-making process. Good actions. MORE >>

by Seth Resler We welcome Leslie Griffey, Marketing Content Manager at Xactly Corporation , as a guest blogger. Finding new leads, leads that haven’t yet found you, and preparing them for sales is tough work. Rewarding people to do it well is even trickier business. good lead generation team keeps your sales team fed and focused on closing deals. It fills your pipeline, creating a steady revenue stream. The lead generation team members develop unique skills and learn how to carefully track leads to pass only the best to sales. It’s a job with two objectives, right? Pass lots of leads to sales. MORE >>

The Captain Wing It sales behavior that begins the Monday malady is the sowing of business cards like grains of wheat with the expectations that business, new sales leads or increase sales will actually be the results of these efforts. Credit www.sxc.hu. How many times do sales people attend a business to business networking event and there is at least one person there who passes out his or her business cards to every single person?  These crazy busy salespersons never truly stop to engage people.  ” Now does this truly make sense? . Share on Facebook. MORE >>