Trending Articles

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Stories & Villains: Storytelling in Sales

Anthony Cole Training

This week I was rewatching the Steve Jobs presentation from 2007 where Apple released a piece of technology that perhaps you have heard of. They called it the iPhone. Maybe you are like me and wonder how it is possible that 18 years have passed since then. I still remember having dinner in Philadelphia with a work colleague who had just bought the first version of the iPhone.

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The 3 Eras of B2B Sales: How Selling Has Evolved (2025 Guide)

Iannarino

I joined my family’s staffing firm when I was seventeen, and since then, I’ve witnessed a complete transformation in B2B sales strategy over the decades. From landing clients like Express, Victoria’s Secret, and DHL to navigating modern decision-making challenges, my journey spans three distinct sales eras — each with unique buyer behaviors and selling techniques.

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Why Your Homepage Is Killing Your Conversions (And What to Build Instead)

ClickFunnels

The post Why Your Homepage Is Killing Your Conversions (And What to Build Instead) appeared first on ClickFunnels. You’ve been told your homepage is the face of your business. The digital welcome mat. The starting point of the customer journey. But that logic is precisely why your conversions are stuck. Listen up: Static homepages don’t sell.

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How Customer Centricity Gets Lost In Our Metrics

Partners in Excellence

As revenue operators, our job is to find and close customers. Whether it’s net new customers, retention/renewal, expansion. We measure our success based on hitting our revenue and profitability goals. Even when we claim to be customer centric, too often, we organize our GTM motions and measure our success in ways that make customers collateral damage, or worse, a means to our ends.

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How to Coach Reps on Overcoming Sales Objections with Confidence

Speaker: Brendan Sweeney, VP of Global Sales and David Phelan, Account Executive

In a world where buyers are more informed and objections are more nuanced, confidence isn't optional—it’s a competitive advantage. In high-stakes conversations, knowing how to handle pushback can make or break the deal. Join industry experts Brendan Sweeney and David Phelan for a behind-the-scenes look at how teams are transforming sales coaching with real-time feedback, objection-handling role plays, and pre-call preparation that actually sticks.

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AI Won’t Replace Sales Reps So Much as ‘Deflect’ Them: What Support’s 70% Deflection Rates Tell Us About Sales’ Future

SaaStr

The AI Account Executive Is Arriving. Here’s What Support — Which is 18+ Months Ahead — Teaches Us About What Comes Next. Customer support cracked the deflection code with AI. Companies are routinely achieving 60%+ deflection rates – meaning AI handles 6 out of 10 (or more) support tickets before a human agent ever gets involved.

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Use Your Summertime Profitably

Engage Selling

Stop using summer as an excuse and start using it as an advantage. Use this quieter time to reach across the organization, strengthen backup contacts, or work on a skill … The post Use Your Summertime Profitably first appeared on Colleen Francis - The Sales Leader.

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5 Game-Changing Sales Insights from Q2 2025

Sales Gravy

The second quarter of 2025 delivered some incredible conversations on the Sales Gravy podcast. From discipline strategies that separate winners from wannabes to the psychology of selling that most reps completely miss, here are the five most powerful insights that can transform your sales results immediately. 1. Focus on Activity, Not Outcomes The Problem: Most sales reps get discouraged when they don't book meetings, causing them to change their approach daily.

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Discovery, A Product Pitch In Disguise!

Partners in Excellence

Great discovery is foundational to understanding our customers and their needs. Too often, we skip it, instead rushing to pitch our products. When we do some nominal level of discovery, it’s actually a product pitch in disguise. Our questions aren’t oriented to understanding their needs or what they seek to change. Instead they steer the customer to express their needs in terms of the capabilities/features of our products.

Pitch 107
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Dear SaaStr: I’m a Seed Stage, First Time VP of Sales. What Should I Do To Be Successful?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: I’m a Seed Stage, First Time VP of Sales. What Should I Do To Be Successful? First off, congrats on the role—it’s a big deal. But seed stage is tough. You’re building from scratch, and there’s no playbook handed to you. So let’s get you on track to crush it. Master the Product and ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) You need to know the product inside and out — before you start.

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How a Draft-In Approach Helped Aptean Accelerate GTM Growth

Force Management

The B2B tech marketplace operates at a lightning-fast pace. The companies that stay ahead of the competition do so by maintaining momentum even through internal changes their leaders make to keep up with the times. The question becomes: how can revenue teams adapt and evolve without disrupting the bottom line?

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Welcome to the Future of Hospitality: Smart Rooms Start Here

Speaker: Jady West, VP of Hospitality & Chris Bennett, Head of Sales & Engineering

The modern hotel room is no longer just a place to stay—it’s an experience to remember. Today’s guests expect seamless 5G connectivity, personalized comfort, and high-tech convenience. From AI-powered smart room controls to in-room entertainment and app-based services, technology is redefining hospitality from the inside out. In this new session featuring industry pros Jady West and Chris Bennett, we’ll explore how high-speed, high-bandwidth connectivity powers the innovations that are enabling

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From Flow Generalists to Champions: Building Agentic AI for Salesforce Automation

Salesforce

The Challenge with Flows Today Salesforce flows sit at the heart of modern CRM automation, yet authoring them still requires a unique mix of declarative drag‑and‑drop and Apex know‑how. To ease this process, Salesforce has committed to incorporating cutting-edge Generative AI technologies such as Agentforce for Flow (A4F, now generally available ). A4F uses AI to generate complete Salesforce flows from a user prompt, which can then be readily deployed on Flow Builder.

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On Consistency and Your Sales Process

Adaptive Business Services

Doing a great job is fine, but it’s not enough. The real question is … will you do it consistently? While we start out good, we may later become lackadaisical and it then goes downhill from there. I remember back to when I became a sales trainee with a national office products company. This firm was recognized for providing the best sales training in the industry.

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Podcast - Sales Forecasting Simplified with Mike Simmons

Membrain

Paul Fuller and Mike Simmons , founder of Catalyst Sales , dive deep into transforming sales forecasting by focusing on just two critical metrics: pipeline created and pipeline developed. Mike mentions that sales teams today are overwhelmed with data but lack actionable insights. The conversation highlights the power of simplifying complex systems and introducing clarity through well-defined, binary, past-tense sales stages.

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How The Top 25 B2B Public Companies Have Performed In 2025 So Far — And What They Tell Us About the Future

SaaStr

We analyzed every major public SaaS company’s YTD performance through just about the end of the first half of 2025. The results may change how you think about building software. TL;DR: The SaaS market has clearly bifurcated in 2025. AI-native + mission-critical = strong performance (Palantir +165%, ServiceNow +12%). Traditional horizontal SaaS faces big headwinds (Salesforce -18%, Asana -31%).

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Breaking The Commerce Bottleneck: Your SAP Exit Plan Starts Now

Speaker: Jason Cottrell and Gireesh Sahukar

Retailers know the clock is ticking–legacy SAP Commerce support ends in 2026. Legacy platforms are becoming a liability burdened by complexity, rigidity, and mounting operational costs. But modernization isn’t just about swapping out systems, it’s about preparing for a future shaped by real-time interactions, AI powered buying assistants, and flexible commerce architecture.

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Are brand awareness and demand generation rivals, or the ultimate power couple?

Martech

For B2B marketers, building lasting connections and driving real results has never been more exciting or complex. I’ve attended recent industry events, including Swaay.Health LIVE, MarTech Spring 2025 and the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference, and one big challenge kept coming up: how do we balance brand awareness with demand generation? It’s a tricky balance.

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Mary Meeker’s 2025 AI Report

Sales Hacker

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.

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When Verbs Turn To Nouns

Partners in Excellence

John Dougan posted something interesting on LinkedIn (There is so little interesting in LI that I treasure the moments when I find something.). It was his struggle with the word Enablement and the concept of what Sales Enablement has become. And John runs sales enablement at a great organization. It got me thinking about something I see happening too much in everything we do in our GTM and customer entanglement strategies.

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Your Real Competitor is The Status Quo: How to Structure Your Thinking to Avoid It

Membrain

For sales teams engaged in complex sales , the most common reason for a “no deal” is not that the prospect chose another solution. It’s that they decided not to make a decision at all. These can be especially frustrating if they drag out and waste a lot of salesperson time chasing a decision that the buying organization never makes.

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Automation, Evolved: Your New Playbook for Smarter Knowledge Work

Speaker: Frank Taliano

Documents are the backbone of enterprise operations, but they are also a common source of inefficiency. From buried insights to manual handoffs, document-based workflows can quietly stall decision-making and drain resources. For large, complex organizations, legacy systems and siloed processes create friction that AI is uniquely positioned to resolve.

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Dear SaaStr: How Are VP of Sales Commissions Normally Structured?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: How Are VP of Sales Commissions Normally Structured? VP of Sales commissions in SaaS are typically structured around a 50/50 On-Target Earnings (OTE) model. This means 50% of their total compensation is a base salary, and the other 50% is variable, tied to hitting specific revenue or ARR targets. Here’s how it usually breaks down: Base Salary (50% of OTE) : This is the guaranteed portion of their compensation.

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Take a look at what’s inside Agentforce 3

Martech

Salesforce this week announced Agentforce 3, which the company says will give Agentforce customers the visibility and control they need to scale their AI agents. Visibility is a fundamental problem for early AI agent deployments. Simply put, teams can’t see what their agents are doing. It’s no surprise Agentforce 3 takes steps to increase control for businesses deploying AI agents.

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GTM 152: What’s Actually Working in GTM Right Now: Lessons from Centari, Atrix AI, & Gaiia

Sales Hacker

The GTM Podcast is available on any major directory, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube What’s actually working in go-to-market right now? In this live panel from the GTM Fund AGM, three early-stage leaders from three exceptional companies—Centari, Atrix AI, and Gaiia—break down how they’re closing enterprise deals in some of the most challenging verticals: legal, pharma, and telecom.

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Close But No Cigar….

Partners in Excellence

According to ChatGPT, the term, “Close but no cigar,” originated in the 1920s-30s. Apparently at carnivals and fairs, cigars were given out as prizes for things like shooting galleries, ring toss, dart games and so forth. When someone missed the mark, the carnie would yell, “Close but no cigar.” We’ve seen the term used for some harrowing moments.

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Get Higher-Quality B2B Leads That Convert!

B2B marketers face a number of challenges, including: continuously generating great leads converting leads to active sales prospects finding vendors that deliver real results Aggregage has proven content syndication, webinar, online advertising and intent signal marketing programs that deliver higher-quality leads. More than 700 companies have already benefited from our programs.

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8 Types of sales enablement content: Why they matter and how they drive success

PandaDoc

Sales teams are juggling more tools, more data, and higher buyer expectations than ever. But when it comes down to closing the deal, the content your reps are using is the most important piece that will make or break the sale. Sales enablement content gives your sales reps the resources they need to build trust, help with objection handling , and move potential customers through the sales funnel.

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How 1,000+ B2B Startups Are — And Aren’t — Growing. The Real Data.

SaaStr

SaaS Capital just dropped their 14th annual survey analyzing growth rates across 1,000+ private B2B SaaS companies. This isn’t your typical “here’s what public companies are doing” report – this is real data from real private companies dealing with real challenges in 2025. Also, importantly, it’s not just a survey of venture-backed start-ups.

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Why marketing must reclaim GTM design in the age of AI

Martech

As AI-powered workflows become central to sales and RevOps, go-to-market (GTM) execution is increasingly dominated by high-volume, sales-led outreach. This change prioritizes short-term demand capture over long-term brand building and demand creation. While AI enables scale and efficiency, it often sidelines marketing’s strategic role and compromises customer experience, especially in enterprise settings where automated outreach can do lasting damage.

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9 sales role plays and exercises that boost skills

Highspot

Key takeaways Sales role plays give sales representatives the space to build confidence in a safe, low-risk environment that encourages them to make mistakes and learn from them. The most effective role plays are matched to each sales rep’s specific role, accounts, experience, and goals. Personalised role-play scenarios lead to better sales outcomes.

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State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

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Read the Room: Operationalizing CLG Signals That Actually Matter

Heinz Marketing

Introduction: The Signal Gap Your buyers are telling you what they need long before they ever talk to sales. But too many teams are still focused on vanity engagement metrics that don’t translate to pipeline. If you’re still optimizing for form fills, you’re missing the real cues. Sales cycles are slower. More deals stall. And across marketing, sales, and customer success, teams are flying blind without a clear view of what buyers and customers are actually signaling.

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From lead to loyal customer: 7 Benefits of CRM systems

PandaDoc

We all know customer relationships are vital to business success. It doesn’t matter if you’re a startup trying to get your first clients or an enterprise with thousands of contacts. A CRM (customer relationship management) system is key to keeping organized. The benefits of CRM in business are vast, from streamlining the sales process and boosting collaboration to helping your team close deals faster.

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GTM in The Age of AI: The Top 10 Learnings from ICONIQ’s 2025 B2B SaaS Report

SaaStr

We’re living through the biggest transformation in B2B sales since the birth of SaaS itself. ICONIQ’s latest report, surveying 205 GTM executives in April 2025 , reveals a market splitting in two: AI-forward companies pulling dramatically ahead while traditional SaaS companies struggle with flat growth, longer sales cycles, and declining conversion rates.

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Klaviyo turns AI and data loose on the challenges of multichannel marketing

Martech

Marketers need to keep pace as consumers use an ever-increasing number of channels to engage with brands. That often leads to the type of silos and fragmentation they’ve battled for years. Today, Klaviyo introduced new AI-powered product features at its K:LDN event in London to help marketers deliver personalized, cross-channel experiences from one platform.

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The Intersection of AI and Sales: Personalization Without Compromise

Speaker: Jesse Hunter and Brynn Chadwick

Today’s buyers expect more than generic outreach–they want relevant, personalized interactions that address their specific needs. For sales teams managing hundreds or thousands of prospects, however, delivering this level of personalization without automation is nearly impossible. The key is integrating AI in a way that enhances customer engagement rather than making it feel robotic.