'Leadership and Teamwork – Pull the Oars … Count the Beats. Another guest blog today, from Patti Grimm.  Great message on working together for everyone’s benefit. Analogies and stories are powerful ways to communicate a message which people remember.  A lot of business writers, professors and business consultants use a number of different analogies to illustrate the value and power of working in High Performance Teams in order to deliver sustainable business results.  The challenge with these analogies is people can be a massive or passive rider on a bus. Leadership Management MORE >>

'There is quite a bit of buzz about a new feature of LinkedIn that most likely is not even available in your Profile as of yet. It is called LinkedIn Contacts and it is worth taking a strong interest in. Most informed sales pros get the social selling concept. They are embracing the strategies, tactics and tools that are driving new revenue and new customer acquisition. One of the primary challenges has become managing the activities and information flowing from various platforms and tools that are used in the selling process. There is a lot to manage if you are actively using available tools. MORE >>

'Don’t think just sending out a bunch of emails is going to generate any leads, especially when you forget the most important part of the email is the first 10 words and the title. Something you must keep in mind when prospecting by email is that the percentage of emails that are read on either a smart phone or a tablet is staggering and increasing each year. This means people are making a decision to open or not open based on the title and maybe the first 10 words.  Don’t waste this valuable space saying anything other than something that is going to engage the person quickly. MORE >>

'Fix your sales problem in 5 easy steps – sounds great, doesn’t it? Formulaic approaches such as this are very tempting. Furthermore, they align with our fast food, quick fix mentality. Seem too good to be true? That’s because it is. Don’t get me wrong, I revel in an easy solution. Unfortunately, most quick fixes are band-aids as opposed to real solutions. One of the biggest problems for sales reps is customer objections. On the web you’ll find tons of “easy 5 step solutions” to this problem. Not surprisingly, most of these need some work. Understanding Customer Objections. Not ready to change. MORE >>

'My guest today is Michael Brenner, Vice President of Marketing and Content Strategy at SAP and Managing Editor for the SAP Business Innovation site. At SAP, Michael’s challenge is to transform social business and content marketing to reduce cost-per-acquisition of new customers. Michael is also the author of B2BMarketingInsider.com , where he discusses content marketing, demand generation, mobile strategy, and sales alignment to name a few. Below, you can read highlights from our discussion or use the links to start the video from different parts of the conversation. Sales is Still Important. MORE >>