January, 2013

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Today is Global Belly Laugh Day

Anthony Cole Training

By Mark Trinkle, Sales Development Expert, Anthony Cole Training Group. “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints….only the good die young”. Our sales brew today is all about celebrating Global Belly Laugh Day. Yep, you can Google it if you want. January 24 th is Global Belly Laugh Day. So, what does laughter have to do with selling?

Pitch 194
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Which Color Converts The Best?

ConversionXL

Color is an essential part of how we experience the world. But do colors really matter for conversions? Everything in our world is made up of things that are of various color. Different colors can lift us up, or bring us down. There is also a psychological side to colors – certain colors are said to be associated with different qualities and emotions.

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How to Know in January if Your Reps are Gonna Miss Their Quota come December

A Sales Guy

As VP of Sales or Head of Sales, making quota is your job. It’s the sole purpose of your existence. Therefore, knowing whether or not your team is going to make quota as early as possible is critical. Being January, I’ve spent much of the month with my clients evaluating their sales plans. Much of this time is spent sitting for hours on end listening to sales rep after sales rep explain how they’re going to make their number for the year.

Quota 127
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Insight And Challenging Without Outcomes Is Just Dreaming

Partners in Excellence

Our customers want insights–they want to learn more about what they could achieve, how they can improve, why they might change! In my experience, this has always been critical to engaging customers. Today, it’s just as critical, perhaps more so, because if we aren’t providing it, they can find it elsewhere. But Insight and Challenging the customer to think differently is not the goal, it’s only the beginning.

Start-ups 125
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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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Why Sales People Don’t Ask for Referrals

Score More Sales

Mike, who is a B2B sales guy asked me a great question: “WHY DON’T MORE SALES REPS PRACTICE ASKING FOR REFERRALS AFTER THE SALE…. I think that big organizations my company sells into have a very big influence at alumni and C-level meetings our C-level contacts attend throughout the year. The referral from this level would be very powerful. Would you agree?

Referrals 105
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Sales Process - Top 10 Reasons Why Sales are Lost

Understanding the Sales Force

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan When a salesperson fails to land a deal, sale or order which they expected, projected, forecasted and pre-banked, nine times out of ten, you can lay the blame on one of the following ten conditions: The salesperson did not have an effective sales process. The salesperson did not follow the sales process. The salesperson was not coached on this opportunity in the context of the sales process.

Process 102

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How to Use Social Media To Drive Sales

ConversionXL

According to a report by Nielsen on social media Americans spend three times more time on social media than reading their e-mail. 7.6% of online time is spent reading e-mail and 23% on social. The juicy bit of the study is that more than 70% of social networks users shop online. That’s ~12% more than the average person. These stats make a good case that if you and your brand is active on social networks, you can get rewarded – if you do it right.

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3 Key Must Have Sales Strategies for 2013

A Sales Guy

If you run or lead a sales team, there are a bazillion things your 2013 sales strategy can and should contain. A good sales strategy and plan should target and address all the micro challenges and opportunities your business is facing. It should be keenly focused on unique business nuances. That being said, there are three general or macro things your 2013 sales strategy MUST have to be complete; a social selling strategy, a content marketing strategy and deliberate learning plan.

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Stop Wasting Your Time Selling!

Partners in Excellence

A sales person’s job is to sell–so why would I recommend professional sales people stop wasting their time selling? The real issue is that too many sales people waste time selling to people who have no need to buy. Sales people make 100′s of calls every day. Mindlessly calling endless lists of people. They don’t know anything about those people, their companies, but their name is on the list so they call.

Sell 124
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Understand the Power of Words to Build Relationships

Score More Sales

Jen Mueller, sideline reporter for the Seattle Seahawks had a quick conversation with Seahawks star quarterback Russell Wilson recently and shared a lesson for us all in sales about the power of the words we choose to use. Click here to view the embedded video. I can’t imagine how much fun (and work) it must be for someone like Jen who often travels with the team and gets the most incredible viewpoint – from the side line of the field – to see the NFL in action.

Represent 103
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Brick & Mortar Retail Relevance: How to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Speaker: Jay Black, Senior Account Executive

Let's set the record straight: in-store retail isn't dead - it's evolving! Faced with the digital age and the demands of omnichannel shopping, some retailers are thriving while others are struggling to adapt. Join Jay Black in this exclusive session as he explores the strategies that set successful stores apart, including: Crafting unique and unforgettable in-store experiences 🛍️ Mastering the art of retail demands 🛒 Navigating inventory challenges in today's climate 📦 an

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A Lazy Salesperson’s Calendar

The Sales Hunter

We all start the beginning of each year with 365 days. To give you an example of how some salespeople can waste the better part of the year, I put together a few numbers below. The sad comment is that a lot of the items, though they seem stupid, are closer to reality than fiction for some salespeople: 365 Total Days in a Year. - 104 Weekend days. - 12 Holidays. - 15 Vacation days. - 5 Sick / personal days. - 10 Company meeting days.

Quota 98
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Coaching Sales People & Raising The Bar

Anthony Cole Training

At Anthony Cole Training Group, we perform a sales team evaluation before we begin working with a group. The findings provide everyone - the sales executives, the individual sales people and us - with actionable insights as to “why” the sales team functions the way it does. Additionally, the Impact Analysis (findings) gives us a guide as to what can and should be done to improve sales outcomes with the right sales leadership, management systems and process.

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19 Things We Can Learn From Numerous Heatmap Tests

ConversionXL

Heatmaps are great for analyzing the behavior of your visitors. They can lead to insights you can’t find using other methods, which can greatly increase your conversion rate. Heatmaps are roughly divided between mousetracking heatmaps and eyetracking heatmaps. The big majority of companies use mousetracking heatmaps because of it’s price effectiveness.

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Why Sales Leaders AND Sales People Fail

A Sales Guy

Sales people and heads of Sales, from the sales manager all the way to the CSO fail because they don’t know how to get it done. It is that simple. I’ve spent much of January listening to my clients and their sales staff go through their 2013 sales plans. Sales plan reviews are no small order, they traditionally last 2 hours per rep/sales leader.

Sales 117
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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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What If We Managed Our People The Way We Sold To Our Customers?

Partners in Excellence

I had this brilliant idea for a post on sales leadership and organizational transformation. When we sell to our customers, we give them insight about how to improve there businesses, we help them identify new opportunities to grow, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations. We have powerful methodologies or approaches like Consultative, Solutions, Customer-Focused, Challenger, Provocative Selling to help us do this.

Customers 120
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3 Ways to Research Prospects Online to Grow Sales

Score More Sales

courtesy of InsideView. If your B2B company has been slow to get more involved in what some call the Social Selling movement, you can still do some very simple things right away while your company debates how, when and why to jump in. Since we encourage clients to make small improvements every day, we are less concerned about your global strategies and more interested in you taking some small specific actions.

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Has “Informed Calling” Replaced “Cold Calling?”

The Sales Hunter

People are quick to say how cold-calling doesn’t work and how if you’re doing cold-calling, you’re wasting your time. If you choose to believe cold-calling doesn’t work and you are going to rely exclusively on referrals, then I suspect you either have a very low-level of expectations or you have a network that rivals a political organization.

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Selling With Enthusiasm

Anthony Cole Training

I was in church on the 24th of December for Christmas Eve mass. Seated in front of me was a mother and daughter. The daughter looked to be about 6 or 7. She had jet black curly hair, dark complexion, brown eyes and a wonderful child's smile. To begin the mass, we all stood as the cantor instructed us where to go in our hymnal to find our opening song.

Sell 181
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1st, 2nd, and 3rd Party Intent Data: Which Is Right for You?

How do 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party intent data compare? 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party data each have specific advantages and disadvantages. It comes down to four factors: accuracy, cost, control and quantity. This infographic explains the pros and cons of each and helps you understand which one is best for meeting your business objectives. Intent data can be a great way to fill your pipeline and close more deals.

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Beauty Pays: Beautiful Websites (and People) Get Better Results

ConversionXL

Does beauty sell? Most people would intuitively say ‘yes’, but what evidence is there that supports the claim? In today’s article we’ll take a look at the world of beautiful people, products and design. How being beautiful has it’s upsides and sometimes, things to look out for. Welcome to the world of beautiful design, beautiful people, beautiful products, beautiful everything.

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Deliberate Learning

A Sales Guy

I’m a huge fan of learning. Let’s skip the fact I was a shitty student and it took me forever to graduate from college, I do love learning. A great deal of my learning comes from happenstance. I see something that interests me, I read it and I learn something. I have a good memory for ideas, memes, and thesis’s, so I retain a lot of what I read.

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Are You Dealing With The Problem Owner Or The Solution Owner?

Partners in Excellence

Yes, I know a few of you are scratching your heads saying, “What does Dave mean with this title?” I’ll explain, but first, I need to define a few things: We–sales people–are solution providers (hopefully). The solution owner is the group within our customer responsible for implementing solutions, but they don’t own the problem, they are helping solve the problem.

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Write Emails That Get Results

Score More Sales

In all the noise and all the clutter you must stand out or your human-to-human connection will not ever take place. Once you have a human connection, you can help move others to take action – but not before. We receive hundreds upon hundreds of emails weekly. It takes something special to stand out. Imagine me stopping to read the one that came in with this first sentence: I’m a sales guy.

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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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Forget Your Goals. Work on Your Customer’s Goals in 2013.

The Sales Hunter

It seems every salesperson is focused on what their goals are for 2013. Nothing wrong with that, but don’t forget about your customer’s goals. Make it a key part of every sales call over the next 30 days to find out what your customer’s goals are for 2013. If you have customers you’re not scheduled to meet with in this time period, then it’s time to get on the phone and talk with them.

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The "1" Thing I've Been Wrong About in Selling

Anthony Cole Training

Well, if I really stop to analyze the last 20 years Anthony Cole Training Group has been in business I am sure that I would find multiple things that I've been wrong about but for today let me just focus on this ONE thing that I've been wrong about. Now to take a minute to defend myself I haven't been wrong about this one thing all the time. There have been moments in sales training sessions and when working with sales managers I have made a better clarifying statement about this ONE thing for s

Sell 174
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11 Things People Believe – But Shouldn’t

ConversionXL

People often choose to believe in things that are just not true. We just “survived” the Mayan apocalypse some people really thought was going to be real – to give an example. Here are 11 things that a lot of us believe, but really shouldn’t. 1. [Insert celebrity name here] endorses product X, so it must be good. “Research has shown that we automatically assign to good-looking individuals such favorable traits as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence.

Price 113
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How to do a Real Reference Check and What Most Sales Leaders DON’T Do

A Sales Guy

There is nothing more important than hiring the best people. Wrong hires are VERY costly. In spite of the importance of getting the right players on board and making good hiring decisions, 50% of all hires don’t work out. In baseball batting.500 is impossible, in hiring it’s less than optimal. To beat the odds requires a solid, progressive, intensive hiring process and part of that process means doing “real” reference checks.

Territory 114
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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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Meeting Our Commitments

Partners in Excellence

As professionals, particularly as sales professionals, we are only as good as the commitments we meet. We’re always making commitments–to our customers, our colleagues, our managers, ourselves. But how many do we meet? We tend to make a lot of commitments, it’s easy to do—”I’ll do this,” “I’ll do that,” “I’ll get back to you with these… ” Commitments are meaningless unless we deliver on them–they becom

Meeting 119
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3 Ways Sales Reps Grow their Visibility

Score More Sales

As a sales professional, do you invest in getting known in your marketplace and in growing your career? Do you have a toolbox of your own tools which can help separate you from the rest of the noise in your industry and sector? This topic has been talked about recently through colleague Miles Austin’s post Snap-on Tool Trucks and Sales Reps. Don’t just read the post but read all the comments too.

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Time to Throw out the “Sales Trash” of 2012

The Sales Hunter

How’s your sales process? Do you have any sales trash? Sales trash is what I refer to as activities you do that really don’t bring any value to the sales process and ultimately don’t result in MORE sales. Time to throw that stuff out and start 2013 on the right foot. It’s a great time to throw out any pieces of your sales process or how you spend your day that just don’t make sense.

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One More Competency That Influences Sales Success

Anthony Cole Training

On the 11th of January this year I posted an article: The Competencies that Influence Sales. Today I read an article from Entrepreneur Magazine and decided that I needed to add one more competency to the list: Timeliness. Ross McCammon in his article reveals the secret to "how to be on time for a meeting": Countless studies by scientist, the military, various government agencies and the guy who invented Clocky, "the alarm clack that runs away ," have all come together to prove that the way to be

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5 Inspiring B2B Marketing Campaigns to Take Yours to the Next Level

Your next big B2B marketing idea starts here. Get inspired with these five successful B2B marketing campaigns. Ready to generate more leads, interest, and revenue with your B2B marketing? In this comprehensive eBook, you’ll get: In-depth studies of five successful B2B marketing campaigns spanning a wide range of industries Key takeaways and lessons from each story to implement in your own strategy Resources to help your own B2B marketing thrive By submitting this form, you agree to have your con