October, 2017

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Chairs are Dead—and Other B2B Marketing Hogwash

Pointclear

In 2015, I wrote this blog for Sales & Marketing Magazine: Dead is Dead (in Sales & Marketing). It seemed like, suddenly, a lot of things were dying: cold calling was dead; telephone prospecting was dead; outbound marketing was dead … many said that even marketing was dead. Maybe I was just sensitive. I mean, I grew up at a time when Paul McCartney was supposedly dead (he, thankfully, lives on).

B2B
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Snapchat Use Among Influencers Is Down 33% [New Data]

Hubspot

We've been following the competition heating up between Snapchat and Instagram since Instagram launched Stories last August. And in the year since, we've been keeping track of the changing tides of disappearing messages and stories -- and Instagram is the one to beat. The number of Instagram Stories users exploded to 250 million users in just a year, far outpacing Snapchat's 173 million users.

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How Great Salespeople Continue to Learn and Earn

Anthony Cole Training

When I Googled ‘Keys to Great Sales Success’ here are some of the links I found interesting:

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Things Clients Notice That You Don’t

Engage Selling

Are you blind to the major turnoffs you may be exhibiting to your clients and prospects?

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Smart Tools & Strong Teams: A People-First Approach to AI in Sales

Speaker: Matt Sunshine, CEO at The Center for Sales Strategy

AI isn’t replacing salespeople—it’s empowering them. The most forward-thinking sales organizations are using AI to enhance human performance rather than eliminate it. From coaching and messaging to prospecting and pipeline accountability, artificial intelligence is giving managers and SDRs the new tools they need to work smarter, sell better, and close more.

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The 30+ Most Desirable Sales Skills & Traits You MUST Develop To Become An Unstoppable Rep

Sales Hacker

Modern sales teams need competent professionals with a variety of talents, skills and abilities. But in a hyper changing landscap e, which are the most crucial sales skills and traits that reps must possess (or develop) in order to exceed targets and deliver consistent sales success? We’ve done our research and compiled the top 30 sales skills you need to master if you want to achieve complete sales enlightenment.

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5 Hardest Things in Conversion Optimization

ConversionXL

Conversion optimization is hard; it’s constantly changing and you need to know a lot about a lot. Keeping up with the technology changes and managing business’ expectations can be tricky. Here’s what some of the top experts in the field are saying about the top challenges in conversion optimization. #1 Having to be an expert in many things. CRO is multidisciplinary and cross-functional.

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HubSpot’s Marketing Team Worked Remotely for One Week. Here’s What We Learned.

Hubspot

Think about the last time you were on a conference call with someone in a different location. Did you run into any communication challenges -- technical, or otherwise? Did you find yourself trying to speak up but failing to get a word in? If there were multiple people on that call, did you find that everyone was able to participate? Remote meetings are becoming increasingly commonplace.

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Sales and Super Mario

Anthony Cole Training

Last week, my fiancé and I were gifted a new Super Nintendo Classic with all the originals preloaded- Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter, Zelda and of course, Super Mario World. Now I realize only a certain group reading this will know the exact system I am referring to but my theory still applies to Atari lovers, Gameboy enthusiasts and even those of you who know nothing about gaming and gaming consoles.

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My First Public Event in 5 Years

Engage Selling

Never Ending Value, Evergreen Relationships, Lifelong Business How to create and employ customer and client strategies for continual business with your clients Alan Weiss and I are hosting a live event in February 2018 in South Beach, Miami to help you grow … Read More »

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The Most Comprehensive Guide To Social Selling You’ve Ever Frickin’ Seen

Sales Hacker

Social Selling. It’s a term that divides opinion within the sales world. Some people think it’s simply another buzzword. Others say social selling is going to change the way we do business. No doubt there are also some salespeople out there that have no idea what social selling actually is. Whether you are completely new to the term or you are an experienced social seller it doesn’t matter, you will find value in this post.

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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 Manager

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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The Four Most Important Skills For Sales Operations Professionals

InsightSquared

Guest blog by Joe Rodden, Sales Systems Manager at Catalant Technologies. I get asked, “What should I look for when hiring someone for Sales Operations?” or “What skills should I have to break into Sales Operations?” a lot. Thinking about the best and worst Sales Operations professionals I’ve worked with over the years, I’ve come up with four skills that the best have and the worst lack.

SQL
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9 Reasons Why Salespeople Lack the Urgency Necessary to Succeed

Membrain

I was in the right-hand lane of very slow moving traffic because of a lane closure ahead, marked by orange cones. I was along side the cones in the lane where traffic was merging left. All of a sudden, a police siren and flashing lights were upon me but I had nowhere to go.

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13 Email Examples That Totally Nailed Personalization

Hubspot

If you're anything like most people, you can probably rattle off 100 different things you'd rather do than dig through your inbox. It starts to feel like a chore, because what's in there isn't very interesting. In fact, only 21% of consumers reported that they've received a memorable promotional email in the past two months, according to a study by Litmus.

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Using Dual Process Theory for Higher Conversions

ConversionXL

Designing your website requires a studied understanding of human behavior if you want to increase your conversions. Using psychological tactics in your design to appeal to potential customers can help do this, but you must first know how users’ decisions are made. Daniel Kahneman presents two thought systems that can give marketers a framework for how to target their ideal clients through site design and get a major uplift in conversions.

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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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The 5 Biggest Differences Between Top and Bottom B2B Sales Performers

Adaptive Business Services

Have you ever wondered why there seems to be such a large gap between the top sales performers and the bottom ones? Why do some sales reps hit their quotas effortlessly while others struggle and lag behind? Being good at sales is a skill. It takes discipline, hard work and often natural talent. Some people are just born good salespeople, while others need to work at it.

B2B
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5 Psychology Tips From An FBI Hostage Negotiator That Will Make You Sell Better

Sales Hacker

Chris Voss served as a hostage negotiator at the FBI for close to a quarter of a century. During a portion of the time, he was the Bureau’s lead international hostage negotiator. Voss had an epiphany of sorts upon leaving the Bureau; he realized that several of the skills he’d learned and honed ‘in the wild’ during hostage negotiations were directly relevant – and essential – to the business arena.

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Operations problem solving: how to start and finish backwards

InsightSquared

Guest blog by Joe Rodden, Sales Systems Manager at Catalant Technologies. It’s nearing the end of your company’s fiscal year, the sales team is gearing up for another year end close, holiday parties are being planned, and your leadership team is determining 2018 initiatives. These initiatives will likely trickle down into your lap in the form of a whole heaping of new projects, sometimes with little more than a one sentence headline.

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Is bad sales logic destroying your profit?

Membrain

There is an epidemic in the sales industry, and it’s destroying profits. Year after year, sales effectiveness continues to decline, and while the causes are many and complex, there is one big problem that is causing way more trouble than it should.

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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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4 Secrets to Writing a Great LinkedIn Headline (With Examples)

Hubspot

When it comes to icebreakers, “describe yourself in three words” is by far one of the toughest. You’re a complex person, with unique ambitions, experiences, preferences, and traits -- how are you possibly supposed to distill yourself down to three mere words? Unfortunately, get-to-know-you conversations aren’t the only time you’ll face this prompt. LinkedIn headlines are essentially the professional version: They ask you to describe who you are and what you do in just one line.

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When The Manager Is The Problem Performer

Partners in Excellence

Every organization has challenges with problem performers. However, too few address these performance issues–at least until the impact of the problem performance is devastating to the organization. A problem sales person can, easily, have an adverse impact of over a million dollars. The “cost” is not just the lost opportunity in their own territories, but the drag they create on their peers and managers has an impact, as well.

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Distraction Engagement and Selling Efficiency

Understanding the Sales Force

Image Copyright iStock Photos.

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Sales Metrics 101: How To Find (And Fix) Those Dangerous Cracks In Your Sales Funnel

Sales Hacker

What’s the one number any salesperson knows by heart? That they can tell you within seconds of you asking, any time of day or year? How much revenue did I book? Did I hit quota? Did I hit my number? That number – bookings – is an incredibly useful business metric. It’s the #1 goal your CEO has, what your investors care about, and what makes you a successful salesperson.

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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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I’ve Been Negligent

A Sales Guy

I know, I know, I haven’t posted a blog post in over 2 weeks. I think this is a record for the longest stint without a post. Why? Why has it been so long? I could give you a million reasons, but the truth is I just haven’t been inspired. I like to offer value to the readers of this blog, and I just haven’t felt it lately. I’ve been writing on A Sales Guy for almost 9 years.

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5 reasons you should dump your old CRM

Membrain

More and more organizations are coming to terms with the fact that traditional CRM has simply not lived up to its promises. Touted as a powerful sales performance tool, in many organizations it has turned out to be an unwieldy tracking and reporting tool, a glorified Rolodex that salespeople resent while sales managers wrangle to get them to use it at all.

CRM
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The 4 Types of Business Etiquette

Hubspot

The first time I went to dinner with a business partner, I was terrified. What if I accidentally brought up a sensitive subject or committed a faux pas? What if it was hard to eat my meal gracefully? What if I made too much eye contact -- or equally bad, too little? Fortunately, the dinner went well. Now that I attended several professional dinners per year, I stay up-to-date with the types of business etiquette and professional norms.

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Year-End Mistakes You Need to Avoid

The Sales Hunter

How are you looking to finish your year? There’s time left, but we need to be careful for fear of making a fatal mistake that dooms the year. A few years ago I was working with a CEO and his 8-person sales team to help them close the year on target. The CEO was blunt […].

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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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Solving the SDR Debate: Sales or Marketing?

Openview

It’s an age-old question: should SDRs report to sales or marketing ? Ask five people, and you’ll get five different answers based on individual experience and factors ranging from company stage to the SDR career path to the individual personalities and preferences of a company’s heads of sales and marketing. It’s a complex issue that is always evolving as the marketplace changes.

SQL
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Why Do Salespeople Use Facts and Logic to Combat Objections?

Understanding the Sales Force

Image Copyright iStock Photos. The easy answer to the title question is that they have been trained to do that since they first arrived at sales kindergarten. Whether talking points, bullet points, inarguable facts, competitive differences, ROI, value proposition, brand promise or cost of ownership, these words and phrases have been reinforced since day 1.

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Why Relationships Are Key To Success in Sales (And How To Build Them Using Social Media)

SalesforLife

Serious question: how well do you think you could function in sales today without the technology and automation that is available? According to a study done by Linkedin this year, sales tech is used by over 91% of all sales people (and only 2% of the top sales performers in the world don’t use it). I’m certainly a fan of it myself, and use a number of digital tools to manage my own sales process for ATP (more on that later).

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Why You Must Avoid Value Blindness in Sales Conversations

SalesProInsider

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder , wrote Plato in the 3 rd century BC. Well, so is value, writes me today. If buyers don’t see the beauty or value of what you sell, that’s value blindness. And buyer’s value blindness will stop your sales opportunity right in its track. Value blindness can create a big problem when trying to convert leads- if it’s not easy for the buyer to see the value of your solution, they most likely won’t put the energy into figuring it out

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New Research-Backed Strategies to Empower Managers as Culture & Engagement Leaders

Speaker: Beth Sunshine, SVP, Up Your Culture

When culture isn’t consistently lived out across the organization, engagement suffers—and it often starts with a disconnect at the top. In this session, Beth Sunshine, SVP of Up Your Culture at The Center for Sales Strategy, will reveal how HR and executive leaders can close the gap between vision and execution by equipping frontline and mid-level managers to become culture carriers.