Anthony Cole Training

JANUARY 10, 2025

As Sales Leader, it is your role to bring resources to your team to help them become even better. Our team of sales experts at Anthony Cole Training Group have compiled 25 sales tips to help your salespeople prospect smarter, plan effectively, and sell with confidence. These tips will help them build stronger client relationships, work on their time management, and improve their selling strategies.

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Anthony Cole Training

JANUARY 3, 2025

Id like to blame my poor visual perception for my subpar golf game, but the real culprit is my lack of consistency in practice. Im inconsistent. As a result, my performance on the golf course is erratic, with scores ranging anywhere from 92 to 102. I can shoot a 44 on the front nine and a 54 on the back. Dont get me wrongbeing virtually blind in one eye doesnt help with depth perception.

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Gaming Sales 327

Anthony Cole Training

DECEMBER 27, 2024

We know that salespeople who accomplish their goals do these things consistently: Their goals are written down and they have a plan to achieve them. They have a timeframe that they stick to and their goals are defined and measurable. Lastly, they have an accountability partner or a coach to keep them on track. A sustainable sales goal plan is more than just thinking about and writing down goals.

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Anthony Cole Training

DECEMBER 19, 2024

As 2024 comes to a close, were sharing our most read and favorite sales training and management content that helped sales teams thrive this year. Whether youre focused on leadership, skill development, or strategic planning, you can use these resources to help drive sales success in 2025. Don't miss our top videos and free downloads at the end!

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Anthony Cole Training

DECEMBER 13, 2024

'Tis the season for prospecting, right? Actually, 'tis the season for every sales leader and company to wonder: Are my people reaching out to enough prospects and customers so that we can begin the year strong? The runway is shortening, and this can be a challenging time to reach decision-makers because they, too, may be out of the office or otherwise busy.

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Anthony Cole Training

DECEMBER 5, 2024

In the old days of selling, closing was about what happens at the end of a client or prospect meeting did we get them to sign something, give us the green light, or seal the deal? The activity was about applying pressure on the buyer to make a decision NOW. Lets pause and think about how we, as buyers, feel when a person is pressuring us to make a buying decision now.

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Anthony Cole Training

NOVEMBER 22, 2024

Many companies monitor their pipeline opportunities with the use of a CRM in order to have information about the opportunities being created by the sales team.

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Anthony Cole Training

NOVEMBER 14, 2024

There are few responsibilities in life more important than being a coach, whether for a sports team, teaching mastery of a musical instrument, or serving as a sales coach. Consider the impact a coach has on their students: helping them uncover problems, discover opportunities, enhance their approach, improve their skills, and achieve success. This also makes coaching one of the toughest roles, as those responsible for it often juggle numerous other tasks daily, including operational, administrat

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Sports Sales Drivers/motivators 317

Anthony Cole Training

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Sales leaders must be both effective managers and great coaches by arming their salespeople with the skills to be successful and managing their strengths. This week, we identify the final 5 keys to success in leading a sales team.

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Anthony Cole Training

NOVEMBER 1, 2024

This article is the 1st place winner of the 2022 Sales Pro Central MVP Awards on Sales Leadership! In our sales management training, we have developed 10 keys and a framework of activities that provide a new or tenured sales leader with a roadmap they need to put in place to help lead their team to greater sales success.

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Anthony Cole Training

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Companies develop a brand, why not salespeople? It is worthy of your time to think about what you do differently and better than your competition. What do you bring to the table, and how do you solve problems for your existing clients? If you cannot pin that down, it is critical that you focus and develop your personal brand. Think about a significant purchase you made recently and the process you went through as a buyer.

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Anthony Cole Training

OCTOBER 17, 2024

According to HubSpot, companies with well-optimized sales pipelines reported a 28% higher revenue growth rate compared to those with poorly managed pipelines. So why is it that many sales leaders default to coaching the deal at hand and do not consistently have sales pipeline management sessions with their people? These sessions should begin with a broader view of the opportunities each salesperson has in their pipeline, with a focus on several key metrics so that managers can compare and track

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Anthony Cole Training

OCTOBER 11, 2024

When asked, most sales managers say that one of their greatest challenges is their ability to motivate salespeople. If a sales manager can figure out what makes their salespeople “tick,” they can help them hit their goal numbers. Motivation seems like hard work because nearly every salesperson values different things. However, there are several steps a sales manager can take to establish a motivating environment for salespeople in order to build a high-performance sales team.

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Drivers/motivators Sales 310

Anthony Cole Training

OCTOBER 4, 2024

In order for salespeople to truly engage, build value, and develop long-lasting relationships, they must compliment their selling approach with sales enablement tools and technology. Listening with the intent to learn, asking questions that are not product-based, and understanding the nuances, trends, and challenges of a company and industry are required in today’s environment.

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Anthony Cole Training

SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

Most of the companies and salespeople we work with must do outbound lead generation and relationship building, and many do not have the luxury of filling their sales pipeline with inbound leads. Like most things, if you have a plan and stick to it, outbound selling will be more effective.

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Anthony Cole Training

SEPTEMBER 13, 2024

If your goal is to retain and expand relationships, it is important to create a consistent and remarkable experience for your customers, clients, and potential clients. If you are not providing a superior experience, your clients might start asking, “ Then, who will?

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Anthony Cole Training

SEPTEMBER 6, 2024

An effective sales proposal is less about what the proposal includes and more about what the end result is supposed to achieve. In fact, many sales proposals are delivered much too soon and inappropriately, often generated because the prospect asked to "see what you can do." If a salesperson follows a stage-based sales process, they know that a proposal only follows when the prospect has hit certain milestones in the discovery process, and they will be ready to give an answer, whether yes or no,

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Anthony Cole Training

AUGUST 30, 2024

In 2005, I read Dave Kurlan’s book Baseline Selling. Dave took the fundamentals of effective selling and used the baseball diamond and baseball terminology to explain his sales process. Baseball today is essentially the same game that was formalized in New York around 1840, but we know that selling has changed considerably. The baseball analogy is a strong one for developing a milestone-centric sales process with your team.

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Anthony Cole Training

AUGUST 23, 2024

All salespeople and their managers want to understand the psychology of selling and in fact, is it a highly searched phrase on google. Giving credit where credit is due, The Psychology of Selling is a well-regarded book by legendary sales professional Brian Tracy that should certainly be on every salesperson’s list of must-reads.

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Anthony Cole Training

AUGUST 16, 2024

Every business that has ever been started has done so by wanting to position its products or services on a continuum between the two extremes of value and price. Some businesses (think Apple, Ritz Carlton) are focused on delivering a high value experience. Some businesses (think Walmart) are focused on being the low-cost provider in their industry. Most businesses land somewhere in the middle.

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Anthony Cole Training

AUGUST 9, 2024

In selling, you should have various rules of engagement when it comes to cultivating a prospect. Across the country, most salespeople just chase prospects. They do not follow any rules of engagement. They fundamentally lack a process, a decision tree, if you will, for deciding yes or no in terms of determining if a prospect is truly a prospect for them.

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Anthony Cole Training

AUGUST 1, 2024

To compete in any marketplace, especially the competitive arena of financial services, advisors, producers, lenders, and relationship managers must have a strategy for success. The top 7% of salespeople, the elite producers, certainly follow a sales strategy and can articulate what they do consistently to find and develop client relationships. There are many ways to differentiate and compete but there are 3 key areas to developing a competitive sales strategy.

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Anthony Cole Training

JULY 25, 2024

As sales manager, business line leader, or CEO, is your team finding, qualifying and closing as much business as you think they should? Most say "No" when we ask that question, which means that something in your client outreach and sales process has to change. And that change, we believe, starts at the very beginning. The call or outreach to set up an appointment is key.

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Anthony Cole Training

JULY 19, 2024

The concept of cross-selling tends to evoke skepticism and wariness. Over time, this skepticism has arisen due to some individuals with good intentions although accompanied by undesirable practices. Pushing product is often another term used for cross-selling & up-selling strategies. Let’s explore why this skepticism about cross-selling exists.

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Anthony Cole Training

JULY 12, 2024

Every salesperson has attended sales meetings and left thinking “Why do I have to go to these meetings? They are a waste of time and not helping me get better at selling.” Sales leaders and managers must own and address this problem.

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Anthony Cole Training

JULY 5, 2024

Remember the tagline and series of commercials by American Express, “Don't leave home without it?” In this case, we don't want salespeople to leave the office without pre-call planning and pre-call preparation. This is a specific discipline, a hallmark and habit of all great salespeople.

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Anthony Cole Training

JUNE 28, 2024

Some of your salespeople are selling as expected… and some of them are not. If we buy into the theories of Italian economist, Pareto, then we buy into the concept that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This application of Pareto Principle can help to answer the question: Why Are Your Sales People Not Selling as Expected?

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Anthony Cole Training

JUNE 21, 2024

In our business, one of the greatest sales challenges that most companies face is how to properly gain insight from the data. Some companies chase a bunch of data without any regard for the story that the data tells. Others struggle when they launch sales coaching without any data at all. One “must-have” sales data insight that all companies should understand is the “pull-through rate.

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Anthony Cole Training

JUNE 14, 2024

Most sales managers say that one of their greatest challenges is their ability to motivate and set goals for their salespeople. If a sales manager can figure out what makes their people “tick,” they can better help them hit their goal numbers. Sales motivation seems like hard work because salespeople often value different things. There are, however, several steps a sales manager can take to establish a motivating environment.

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Drivers/motivators Sales 349

Anthony Cole Training

JUNE 7, 2024

Working with community banks across the country, we understand that now is an important time to have the right people in the right place, asking the right questions, to address the flow of deposits. In this high interest rate environment, consumers are moving excess amounts from checking accounts to higher yielding CDs and alternative products. This presents problems and opportunities for every bank.

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Anthony Cole Training

MAY 31, 2024

“Did I hire my salespeople this way or did I make them this way?” This is the question every sales manager must ask. Fixing performance problems always starts with Standards and Accountability.Accountability means taking responsibility for outcomes – good or bad. A sales leader’s primary responsibility is to put the BEST team into the marketplace.Much like a general manager in sports, a director of a theatre company or an orchestra leader of a symphony, you have a job and a responsibility to hir

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Sports Sales Drivers/motivators 298

Anthony Cole Training

MAY 23, 2024

Business or sales acumen is the ability to connect with prospects and clients on a deeper level by understanding their unique problems, anticipating their needs, and leveraging knowledge of their business and industry to recommend the best possible solution — regardless of whether or not it results in a closed deal.

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Anthony Cole Training

MAY 17, 2024

According to the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, “Only 59% percent of the 32,000 global respondents to the firm’s 23rd annual trust and credibility survey trust financial services to do what is right, compared to 75% who trust technology and 71% who trust education and food & beverage companies — the top 3 most trusted industries. In the United States, 57% of consumers trust financial services, an increase of 9 percentage points over 2022 findings.

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Anthony Cole Training

MAY 10, 2024

In today’s world of banking and insurance, it is increasingly more difficult to get the attention of a prospective buyer after only a few outreach attempts. We are all busier than ever before with multi-media coming from every direction. So, how do you stay consistent (and persistent) in your outreach with a prospect while remaining sensitive to their daily lives and the distractions they face?

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Anthony Cole Training

APRIL 26, 2024

DNA is a molecule called deoxyribonucleic acid, which contains the biological instructions that make each species unique. So, what makes up the very unique and coveted Sales DNA? Is there a genetic code for successful sales managers and if so, wouldn’t every company like to crack that code?

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Anthony Cole Training

APRIL 19, 2024

Technology is transforming businesses and disrupting entire industries, including the world of selling, which has traditionally been categorized as primarily a “people business”. From prospecting to closing, today’s mobile, social, big data, and cloud technologies are revamping the sales process in ways that would have been inconceivable a few decades ago.

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Anthony Cole Training

APRIL 5, 2024

You don’t want to look, act, or sound like every other salesperson when asking your prospect questions. There is an art and a science to being masterful at asking your prospect better questions and building a strong, credible relationship with them. Read on to learn 5 tips for asking meaningful, exploratory, and courageous questions.

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