May, 2019

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Timing is Everything

John Barrows

The more experienced I get in business the more I realize how important timing is with almost everything. I can’t tell you how many ideas I’ve heard about (or come up with myself) that were great ideas at the time, but failed because the market wasn’t ready for them. Good Ideas, Bad Timing. My former company, Basho, developed an app that plugged into Salesforce and gave you insights/triggers on customers and contacts that you could directly input into pre-made, customizable templates and then tr

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Own Your Time

The Pipeline

By Tibor Shanto. Time is a truly critical element of sales success, yet too many take a very passive approach to their time. If not careful, time can be stolen by or wasted on the wrong opportunities. The most successful sellers will tell you to guard and own your time, not letting others waste it. To succeed in prospecting, in fact, in any element of sales, you need to own your time.

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10 Things You Can Do to Prospect Faster

The Sales Hunter

We all wish every lead turned into a great prospect and in less time. You probably also want it all to take you less time than it takes to decide what you want to eat for lunch. That would be the greatest customer, right? Yes, in a perfect world, that could happen. I would be happy to settle even if the entire process only took 24 hours. The fact is that too often leads don’t go anywhere and we’re left with a painfully slow journey to try to get the next customer.

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Small Business Owners: The Future Is Your Responsibility

No More Cold Calling

Get out of the weeds. How many balls can you keep in the air at one time? Some business leaders are better jugglers than others, but everyone has their breaking point—or, rather, their dropping point. Juggling priorities is a challenge for every business owner. You’re overwhelmed with business development and all the things you need to do to attract and retain customers.

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Sales & Marketing Alignment: How to Synergize for Success

Speaker: Carlos Hidalgo, Co-Founder & CEO of Digital Exhaust, Author, International Keynote & TEDx Speaker

Recent research shows that only 50% of B2B organizations state that they have good alignment between their marketing and sales teams. This lack of alignment tremendously impacts the ability to meet business goals, and is a limiting factor for building and maintaining customer relationships. While many B2B organizations continue to struggle with aligning their marketing and sales teams, they can take practical steps to unify both teams and simplify their overall approach.

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10 Reasons Why Salespeople Hallucinate

Understanding the Sales Force

I was in the basement of our home looking for something when I saw it. It moved left to right, low, between the stored Christmas trees. I took another look and this time it moved right to left. Each time I moved, it moved. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized it wasn't a critter but a shadow that I was casting. I saw something that simply wasn't there.

More Trending

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Is Your Value Proposition Strong Enough?

Jill Konrath

I was eating lunch with the new president of a large manufacturing company. She was well aware of the work I’d done with their sales organization. So when I asked about her biggest challenge, I assumed we’d be talking sales. Instead, she answered, “Waste.”.

Company 302
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Your Numbers Suck

The Pipeline

By Tibor Shanto. You hear it said a lot in different fields of endeavour, “their numbers” or “his numbers” suck. Told in the abstract about a ballplayer you can understand what they mean. Given that the subject of the observation usually is not present, it remains more a descriptor with no direct impact on the subject. However, when a manager tells their rep, “your numbers suck,” it has an immediate and lasting detrimental impact.

Sage 313
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Friday Five – Boost Activity and Sales

Score More Sales

It is that time of year where you and your sellers are going to be more distracted with that upcoming vacation, parents / friends / other family visiting, and other benefits of the summer season.

Benefit 281
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Small Business Owners Don’t Want to Learn How to Sell

No More Cold Calling

Hiding behind technology doesn’t drive sales—THIS WILL. Next week is National Small Business Week in the United States. For more than 50 years, the U.S. president has issued a proclamation that dedicates the first full week in May to celebrating America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners. There’s plenty to celebrate. More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and those companies create about two out of every three new jobs in the U.S. each year, according to the

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How Intent Data Helps Marketers Convert A-List Accounts

One of the biggest challenges for any B2B marketer is understanding your prospects’ next move — who is most likely to buy and when. Without these insights, marketing campaigns can feel more like guesswork, with high investment and little return. We’re here to tell you there’s a better way. By tracking buyers’ digital footprints and online activity, such as website visits, product reviews, and spikes in content consumption, you can engage prospects with a message that really resonates.

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How Top Salespeople Anticipate and Manage Resistance

Understanding the Sales Force

Last week Tom Hopkins shared a post on LinkedIn that resembled what I have said so many times. He said, " The art of selling involves two jobs: Job One is to reduce sales resistance and the other is to increase sales acceptance.". Many readers left comments about the importance of relationships as a means to preventing resistance from going up. I left a comment that said, " Thanks Tom.

ACT 316
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Workplace Wellness Can Deliver a Healthy ROI

Sales and Marketing Management

Author: Paul Nolan The mission of Atlanta-based Hodges-Mace, LLC, is to help its client companies communicate clearly the full details about their employee benefits package so workers can get the most out of them. It stands to reason, then, that Hodges-Mace pays careful attention to its own employee benefits package. The company, which has been named one of the best places to work in Georgia by Georgia Trend Magazine, incorporates education, contests and incentives into its benefits program, ado

ROI 257
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Promoted! Sales Manager Goals and Objectives

Connect2Sell

As a sales manager, you’re responsible for delivering results. Leading people starts with leading yourself and making choices that truly get the right results the right way.

Promotion 233
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Better Use Of Your Time

The Pipeline

By Tibor Shanto. On Tuesday I posted about the need for salespeople to own their own time. Had a number of folks reach out to see what steps they can take to ensure they are maximizing from this resource. Based on a couple of calls, I decided to follow with a specific methodology for better use of your time. Get Out Of The Zone. As with most transformational things, we need to take specific and uncomfortable steps.

Maximizer 286
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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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Who Makes a Great Prospect? 4 Questions You Must Answer

The Sales Hunter

You cannot afford to waste your time with prospects that will not become your customers. Your time is too valuable! All prospects are not the same. The sooner you know who is good and who isn’t, the better off you will be. By getting answers to these four questions, you’ll also help turn them into better customers by offering them more value. Too many salespeople wait too long to get answers to these questions and it leads to having a pipeline that’s essentially a sewer line.

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6 Questions to Ask When Creating Your Email Marketing Budget

Zoominfo

In 2017, email marketing turned half a century old. Yet, B2B marketing professionals continue to rank the channel high on their list of preferred marketing tactics. The reason for this is simple. Email marketing is an inexpensive way to promote products, increase sales, and retain customers. In fact, email marketing has a median ROI of 122%– more than 4 times higher than other marketing channels, including social media, direct mail, and paid search ( source ).

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What to Do with the Salespeople Who Become Your Biggest Problem

Understanding the Sales Force

I coach a lot of sales managers and sales leaders and when I ask them what they want help with today, it's rarely a big opportunity, it's seldom coaching best practices, it's hardly ever targeted metrics for their team, and it's almost unheard of for them to request that I help them improve as sales managers, Oh no. They almost always want help with their biggest problem child.

Coaching 311
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How to Write a Marketing Plan in Six Easy Steps

Sales and Marketing Management

Author: Lonny Kocina A well-executed marketing plan is like a GPS. It guides your customers into your sales process. Done right, your marketing should result in more leads, higher sales and a stronger brand. Following steps in a logical progression, without going off on tangents, is one of the fastest ways to achieve your goals. Negotiating business contracts can be complicated.

Marketing 237
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Redefining the CDP: 8 Data-Driven Designs for Successful Customer Journeys

In this guide, discover 8 use cases for how a customer data platform can tackle common challenges faced by marketing, commerce, service, and sales teams. With helpful diagrams and simple explanations in each use case, see how Salesforce’s CDP, Data Cloud for Marketing, powers personalized, real-time experiences across marketing, with capabilities that include: Optimizing ad spend Powering dynamic website content Increasing upselling and cross-selling Resolving service cases with marketing data B

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Promoted! Effective Sales Management Begins with Letting Go

Connect2Sell

Why is there so much confusion about what effective sales management looks like?

Promotion 279
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Why “Content First” Salespeople Have an Edge

The Pipeline

The Pipeline Guest Post -Susan Varty. Imagine you had everything you needed to say at your fingertips. All the customized emails, personalized messages, all the marketing materials, all the product benefits, and all of the relevant articles you would love to send your prospects. Wow. That is a dream indeed. As a salesperson, all interactions require content.

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Your Competitor is Not Who You Think It Is

The Sales Hunter

You probably think your competitor is the big evil company that just came out with a more superior product than yours. No! That big evil company is not your primary competitor. Your two biggest competitors are: 1. Your own self-limiting doubts about what you can’t do. 2. The “no decision” response that too many customers ultimately decide on.

Intent 237
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7 Ways to Run More Efficient Business Meetings

Zoominfo

If you’ve worked in business for any length of time, you’ve attended two very different types of meetings. First, there are effective business meetings, where employees share necessary information, collaborate efficiently, and develop next steps to solve their shared problems. And then there are the meetings where to put it simply, nothing gets done.

Meeting 221
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Retail Tech: Empower Associates, Optimize CX, and Boost Productivity

Speaker: Andrew Regan, Managing Partner at BlueSeed Retail Ltd.

Did you know that 70% of new retail technology fails to deliver expected benefits and can often decrease customer value, service, and experience? With that in mind, how can we empower our store associates to leverage new technology to optimize the customer experience and boost productivity? This exclusive webinar with Andrew Regan will dive into strategies to empower retail associates for success with new technology.

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The New Salesenomics

Understanding the Sales Force

Back in the 1960's it made sense for gasoline prices to be discounted down to the nearest 9/10 of a cent because gas prices ranged between 17.9 to 18.9 cents. But when gas prices are around $3.00 per gallon, how does 9/10 cent continue to make sense? Some habits die really hard. I don't know about you but some things just don't make sense to me. I loved the Leavitt/Dubner series of books on Freakonomics and thought I could share some interesting sales and sales management data that make little s

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The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Relevant Buyer Experiences

Sales and Marketing Management

Author: Theresa O'Neil, Chief Marketing Officer of Showpad Today’s B2B buyers have higher expectations than ever before, and their criteria for making purchase decisions is evolving. While having a great product at the right price point is certainly important, it doesn’t guarantee success. A study from SiriusDecisions found that 81 percent of B2B buyers today make purchase decisions based on buying experience, rather than product or price.

Buyer 235
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In Search of the Perfect Sales Tech Stack (Here’s What’s Working Today)

Sales Hacker Training

Wondering how other sales teams are working their magic? Sure, their processes and talent have something to do with their success, but so does their sales stack. So what’s going on behind the curtain? Yeah, we’ve been thinking about that too. Namely… What does the perfect sales stack look like? And is it possible to leverage technology for a better pipeline and bigger deals?

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The Complete Salesperson

The Pipeline

By Tibor Shanto. I know we’re not supposed to stare at people’s peculiarities, but at times it is hard not to. For instance, at the gym, where you see someone with a well-developed upper body, standing on two twigs. While the first instinct may be to snicker, but having worked with salespeople, I see this type of oddity almost daily. Selective Training.

Handbook 235
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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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How Do I Get Past the Gatekeeper?

The Sales Hunter

If there is one type of person every salesperson has more than a few pain-filled stories about, it is the gatekeeper. Relax! I’ve experienced my share of this too. You can’t make too many sales calls of any type without encountering one. You don’t have to think that the gatekeeper is the person waking up in the morning with the sole intent to keep you out.

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Improve Your B2B Sales Process with Company and Contact Data

Zoominfo

True sales productivity boils down to two things: numbers and time. How many calls can you make in a day? How much time do you spend on selling vs. non-selling activities? More specifically, how can you increase your numbers (calls, email, sales, deal size) during the time you spend working each day? A quick Google search will lead you to plenty of lists claiming to offer the best sales productivity hacks and tricks you need to increase sales productivity.

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Dave Kurlan's 23 Steps to Improved Channel Sales

Understanding the Sales Force

When you purchase a car, do you consider yourself a customer of the dealer you bought or leased it from, the auto maker, or both?

Channels 289