April, 2018

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4 Powerful Methods to Keep Opportunities from Stalling

SBI

The ultimate, and most desirable goal of any sales conversation with a prospect is for it to result in unbridled enthusiasm for taking the next step. You know the feeling. You hang up the phone from a sales call, pumped with turbo-infused Adrenalin, giving yourself a mental high-five, feeling like you ‘nailed-it.’ Your confidence is soaring, and you’d bet a million bucks the prospect is feeling the same sense of excitement.

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Data Shows Most Salespeople are Dinosaurs When it Comes to Social Selling

Understanding the Sales Force

Several recent LinkedIn posts have urged readers to pick up the phone instead of trying to find new opportunities by using social media. I wrote a very popular article about using the phone 3 years ago called, The Next Can't Miss Game Changer for Sales. I have data that shows that the very people who don't score well at hunting (reluctant, ineffective or both) also score poorly at Social Selling while those who score the highest for Hunting score higher for Social Selling too.

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Discovered - Data Reveals the Biggest Obstacle to Closing More Sales

Understanding the Sales Force

Humans have been waiting for thousands of years to discover the secrets of life. Why are we here? Why do bad things happen? What happens after we die? Is Heaven real? What is God's plan for us? While many experts have attempted to answer all of these questions, most of us lack proof. There's no data. If we wake up tomorrow morning and suddenly there are not only answers to these questions, but science-based proof, that would be a game-changer for us.

Data 216
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Our Customers Are Doing Their Homework

Partners in Excellence

Every three years, I go through the same cycle. My car lease comes to an end. Every three years, the same thing happens; about 6 months before the lease end, the dealer(s) start to contact me. It’s always with an offer, “We can let you out of the lease early and get you into the latest model of your current car… ” I’ve just gotten into that 6 month window.

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How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send

Learn how to optimize email deliverability and drive greater email ROI. What lands your email in the customer’s inbox? Understanding those factors, otherwise known as email deliverability, is critical to getting the most return on your campaign investments. But the “rules” around which factors land you in the spam folder aren’t always easy to keep up with.

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How to Harness the Power of Business Referrals

No More Cold Calling

It’s time to get serious about business referrals. In spite of numerous misconceptions and poor implementation, referrals in business are where the power is. But the first step to harnessing this power is understanding just what referral selling is and how it feeds your sales machine. Is Winning Cheating? “Sales is hard enough. Let’s cheat and ask for referrals.

Referrals 260

More Trending

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3 Ways to Shorten Onboarding Time for New Sales Reps

SBI

As a sales leader, onboarding new hires quickly should be a top priority. Why? When your sales ramp rate is poor, it’s a huge drain on resources that can prevent you from hitting annual targets. It costs your company time and money that it could put toward new hires and increased sales. So, how do you implement a great sales ramp rate that sets you up for success and lets your sales team soar?

Hiring 139
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How to Leave Sales Voicemails People Actually Want to Respond To

Hubspot Sales

Has your name ever been on a salesperson's call list? Did you receive a lot of voicemails from that salesperson over the course of a few weeks? Think back to those sales voicemails. Were they valuable? Did you learn anything that helped you? Or were the voicemails a carbon copy of the company's elevator pitch? I probably receive about 20 calls a day from various salespeople.

Lead Rank 108
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Why Should I Give You a Referral?

No More Cold Calling

Referral sales is personal … but it’s still business. I recently received the following email: “I finished your book on referral sales last night, and now I’m building my 100 names so that I can ask for introductions to a couple of decent sales reps with some experience selling to my market. I’m also going to ask my network if they know companies in this space.

Referrals 249
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Active Listening in Sales: The Ultimate Guide

Hubspot Sales

Salespeople don’t hold all of the cards anymore. With a quick Google search and some browsing, prospects can gather as much information about a product as a salesperson has. As a result, it’s harder for salespeople to demonstrate their expertise. And if they can’t demonstrate expertise, it becomes all the more difficult to establish credibility and eventually build trust.

Call-back 144
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ABM Evolution: How Top Marketers Are Using Account-Based Strategies

In times of economic uncertainty, account-based strategies are essential. According to several business analysts and practitioners, ABM is a necessity for creating more predictable revenue. Research shows that nearly three-quarters of marketers (74%) already have the resources needed to build successful ABM programs.

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9 Terrible Sales Email Subject Lines You’ve Probably Used This Week

Hubspot Sales

Touching Base Email Subject Line. “Are you struggling with [challenge]?”. “Any luck with [goal]?”. “[Mutual connection] said we should talk”. “Some ideas on driving recurring revenue”. “Hi [name], [question]?”. “[Prospect's name] -- do you have 10 minutes for a conversation?". "Hoping to help with X". " Will persistence pay off?". "[Pain point]. does this sound familiar?".

Referrals 105
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Executive Sales Coaching – Frequently Asked Questions

Steven Rosen

The What, Why, How, and When of Executive Sales Coaching. Executive coaching is estimated to be a $2-3 billion/year global industry. There has been dramatic growth in the number of people who are becoming coaches and leaders who are hiring coaches. The rapid pace of change, high levels of uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity in business is forcing both executives and managers to look beyond training for their ongoing development needs.

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The Missing P(iece) In the Sales Enablement Puzzle

Sales and Marketing Management

Author: Rich Lanchantin, CEO, Qstream With unemployment rates at a 10-year low, it simply isn’t practical to buy your way to sales performance by cherry-picking top reps from the market. Instead, the most resilient and successful sales organizations are building programs that draw maximum value from more of their existing reps. This requires going beyond one-size-fits-all training and development programs that are measured by simple pass/fail certifications or completion rates.

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How To Answer The Only Question That Counts

The Pipeline

By Tibor Shanto. Last week in this blog I made the argument that sellers have to answer one question above all, the one all buyers other than owners and Board Chairmans or Persons to be somewhat PC, the question: “ If I go ahead with this, will I get fired? ” Which leads to “How do we do that?” Take Them Back. While things around us are changing by the minute, change unfolds in many ways not just for different people, but for all people collectively.

How To 267
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Supercharge Your Sales: 5 Steps to Effortless Selling

Sales teams often lose precious time hunting for updated sales materials, while marketing struggles to keep these assets accessible and current. It's not just about managing; it's about seamlessly finding, presenting, and sharing critical sales content. All of this takes place within an intuitive, unified platform. Dive into Showell's groundbreaking content management realm.

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Call Me in 6 Months - A Polite Way of Saying No

Jeffrey Gitomer

Pat me on the head and tell me to go away. That's the real meaning of call me in six months (or any nebulous "get back to me" after some period of time).

Call-back 272
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Are You Caving on Price in Your Sales Negotiations?

No More Cold Calling

Price isn’t an issue with referral business. More than 10 years ago, a marketing agency told me most sellers cave on price before prospects even ask for a discount. Sadly, that behavior continues in sales negotiations today. We’ve trained our buyers to expect discounts and that everything is negotiable. They know sales reps will make the best offers at the end of the quarter or at the end of our fiscal year, so they wait.

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One Thing You Should NEVER Do with a Prospect

The Sales Heretic

The tall, gangly man wore an old t-shirt and cutoff jean shorts. His long black hair hung unkempt halfway down his back. And he arrived at the luxury car dealership on a bicycle. The veteran salespeople knew better than to waste their time with him. They sent the rookie out to deal with him. The [.].

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What to do When Prospects Won’t Admit They Need Help

Zoominfo

If you’ve worked in sales for any amount of time, you know the standard sales process looks something like this: You identify a prospect and conduct research, you figure out what pain point or challenge they’re trying to solve, and then you offer your product or services as the solution. You also know many deals fall through—not because the prospect doesn’t need your product or decides to go with a competitor—but simply because they can’t, or won’t, make a decision.

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Cloud-Based Solutions: The Sky Is the Limit for Retail Success

Speaker: Ryan Bryers, SVP of Global Engineering

In a rapidly evolving industry, the shift from traditional on-premise systems to cloud-based solutions has become crucial for retail success. While many businesses still rely on store-level infrastructure, it's time to embrace the unlimited potential of the cloud! With technology giants like Google, AWS, and Azure leading the charge, the true value of the cloud extends far beyond cost savings.

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5 Unconventional Tactics of Excellent Sales Managers

Sales and Marketing Management

Author: Kevin F. Davis Excellent sales managers aren’t made overnight. As a manager, you’re always learning and growing along with your sales team. Every team member has a unique reaction to your management style, and it takes a great manager to navigate all those unique situations and relationships. Here are five off-the-beaten-trail tactics you can use to foster those relationships and move toward being an excellent sales manager. 1.

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The Dynamics Of Objections

The Pipeline

By Tibor Shanto. No one like objections, including those who have learned to see objections as a means of moving the call forward, they just understand, appreciate and leverage pushback differently than those who are crushed by the same response. As with most things in sales, we need to manage both the dynamics and the substance of the conversation, delivery and content.

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When you answer a prospect's question, avoid two words - Yes and No.

Jeffrey Gitomer

When a prospect asks me a yes or no question, I never answer yes or no. When a prospect asks me any question, I always answer in the form of a question.

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How to Keep Competitors Out of Your Best Clients

Jill Konrath

When Todd called me, he was worried. His company was growing. Over the past few years, they'd steadily acquired their toughest competitors. They were now the dominant player in a fragmented market, setting the benchmark against which all other vendors are compared. So what could possibly be going wrong? It turns out, a lot!

Vendor 206
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The Battle of the Authoring Tools: A 10-Point Comparison for Picking the Right One

Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions

There are plenty of great authoring tools for developing eLearning, but the one you select could directly impact your course's outcomes. Depending upon your learners’ needs and your organization’s performance goals, you could be overlooking considerations that impact the both effectiveness of your courses and how long it takes to finish them. From general capabilities to specific workflow structures, some aspects are critical when it comes to learning objectives and deadlines.

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Competitive Sports are Like Professional Sales

Score More Sales

CLICK HERE to Play Video (or click on image above). When my company was re-branded, I wanted a name that represented my views and my life. At the time, my son had been a successful Division I college athlete and moved on as a professional hockey player. Not only had I raised one competitive athlete but we also provided a home-away-from-home in Seattle for players who played Major-Junior hockey in the Canadian Hockey League (CHL).

Sports 201
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The Business Leader’s Guide to Marketing and Sales Alignment

Zoominfo

Discord between marketing and sales departments is an age-old story. The marketing team gets annoyed at the sales team for failing to follow up on leads and in return, the sales team is annoyed with the marketing team for generating low-quality leads in the first place. As it turns out—neither team is wrong. Research shows the average sales team ignores 50% of marketing leads ( source ).

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4 Steps to Motivate an Underachieving Salesperson

Sales and Marketing Management

Author: Jen Wagstaff More than 10 years spent working in sales training have taught me to understand and turn around salespeople who are struggling. Here are four steps I’ve found most effective to re-motivate a salesperson who’s falling behind. 1. Start positive – identify their strengths. If you’re a manager in charge of one person, or a team of salespeople who aren’t pulling their weight, the pressure to offer a solution can be intense.

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It Depends Less Than You Think

The Pipeline

By Tibor Shanto. Given that sales is partly art and science, or more accurately “a science artfully executed,” we need to the create the right balance between the two. The best way to do that is to nail down the science part, freeing up maximum bandwidth, focus and creative thinking possible committed to mastering and improving the evolving art side of sales.

Account 215
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How to Leverage Intent Data for Better Outcomes

Speaker: Susan Spencer, Principal of Spencer Communications

Intent signal data can go a long way toward shortening sales cycles and closing more deals. The challenge is deciding which is the best type of intent data to help your company meet its sales and marketing goals. In this webinar, Susan Spencer, fractional CMO and principal of Spencer Communications, will unpack the differences between contact-level and company-level intent signals.

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Networking breeds relationships.and sales.

Jeffrey Gitomer

How long does it take to establish a networking relationship? There is no set answer. It takes time. How much time does it take to show a prospect you are credible, honorable, have a good company and can deliver consistently? It takes time.

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Eight Ways to Make Your Sales Meetings More Valuable

The Sales Heretic

In my seminars and workshops, one of the most frequent complaints I hear from salespeople is that regular sales meetings are a waste of their time. Unproductive sales meetings not only drain the morale of your sales team, they can actually cost you sales, because your people are sitting in a meeting room rather than [.].

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27 Powerful Email Closing Lines That'll Intrigue Prospects & Prompt Responses

Hubspot Sales

Email Closing Lines. "I've got a great checklist on [insert topic]. Want me to send it your way?". "Is it currently a priority to improve [insert business goal]?". "Did the ebook you downloaded change the way you think about [insert topic]?". "I love ramen as well. Have you tried [insert restaurant name]?". "I've also a fan of [type of music]. Who are your favorite artists?".

Closing 145