February, 2023

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How to Organize a Prospect List for Booking First Meetings

Iannarino

It's important to be organized in sales. You always have open loops you need to close, like sending a new contact the case study they requested. Or perhaps you owe another client an edited contract for a new offering they are interested in buying. Being organized improves your efficiency , allowing you to do more work in less time and with less effort.

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4 Types of Sales Positions That Can Never Be Replaced by AI

Understanding the Sales Force

I began debunking sales articles when the first ones predicting the death of selling appeared circa 2008. Back then, new digital marketing companies were telling everyone that salespeople would be replaced by inbound marketing. "Inbound is King," they said. Later, articles predicting the end of selling became both more prolific and more specific including the certain death of: Solution Selling Cold Calling Consultative Selling Sales Process SPIN Selling and more.

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3 Ways to Help Sellers Chart the Buyer Landscape

Force Management

Many of today’s top sales organizations are starting to feel the effects of the economic downturn through increased selling criteria and buyer scrutiny. The new B2B customer is more focused on ROI than ever before, and they likely have multiple parties approving the deal through different criteria. What does this mean for sales leaders?

B2B
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Buy Out Contracts: At Least Think About Making Them Part of Your Sales Toolkit

SaaStr

So we’ve done a few good posts on SaaStr about how to steal a customer / prospect from a competitor on SaaStr here: How to Steal a Customer From the Competition (a good one) Want to Steal a Customer From the Competition? You Gotta Do the Work (Of Course) Your Competition is Trying to Sell To, And Steal, Your Customers And yet, I still see so few SaaS companies doing even the most basic steps here.

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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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Create Buy-In Confidence for Your Customers

Engage Selling

When it comes to business development, account management, and sales prospecting, are you creating buy-in confidence for your customers? Let me let you in on a secret: your customers today … The post Create Buy-In Confidence for Your Customers first appeared on Colleen Francis - The Sales Leader.

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#5: Focus on the Best Version of Yourself | Tony's 5 Key Takeaways from 30 Years in Business

Anthony Cole Training

Last week, I shared 5 key things that have helped us grow and serve others in the last 30 years, hoping they will be helpful to others on their journey. Now, I'm taking a deeper dive into the 5 key takeaways with a more detailed on each. Starting with #5: Focus on the Best Version of Yourself.

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82 Open Ended Sales Questions (Ultimate Guide Included)

Veloxy

Did you know that asking questions makes it more likely for customers to approve of you? It’s true. Research conducted at Harvard University suggests asking questions improves liking and learning. Open ended sales questions are a crucial aspect of the sales process. They allow salespeople such as yourself to better understand the customer’s needs, goals, and challenges.

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The Tech You Need to Deliver Killer Virtual Presentations

Cerebral Selling

When the pandemic hit, my entire sales training and coaching practice went virtual. While I’m grateful that my clients feel my presentation style is fun and engaging, to create the live experience I was after (not to mention creating my entire online Sales Academy program), flipping on my webcam, popping in those ubiquitous Apple headphones, and looking down at my laptop wasn’t going to cut it.

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The Team, The Team, The Team

Force Management

I have been very fortunate to be a part of some great teams in my life. My freshman year in college I played football for the Defending National Champions of I-AA (now D-I), Boise State University. I transferred my sophomore year to Bowling Green State University in Ohio and played for one of the greatest teams in BGSU history. During the 1985 season we were ranked 20th in the nation ahead of some of the powerhouse schools like Texas and Georgia!

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Ignore this Referral Strategy at Your Peril

Engage Selling

 How’s your referral strategy? This particular referral strategy is one of the fastest ways to grow your revenue. The post Ignore this Referral Strategy at Your Peril first appeared on Colleen Francis - The Sales Leader.

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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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#4: Relationships | Tony's 5 Key Takeaways from 30 Years in Business

Anthony Cole Training

Recently, I shared 5 key things that have helped us grow and serve others in the last 30 years, hoping they will be helpful to others on their journey. Now, I'm taking a deeper dive into the 5 key takeaways with a more detailed on each. Here's #4: Relationships.

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5 Top Sales Team Performance Metrics You Should Be Tracking

Iannarino

“If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business.

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How to use AI and machine learning to personalize and optimize campaigns

Martech

AI is revolutionizing how marketers engage customers. Beyond how a chatbot like ChatGPT might change the way customers search, AI and machine learning models can also equip marketers with the power to personalize and optimize their messages to customers. Automation and optimization for personalized messages “[Automation and optimization] are two broad areas that marketers leverage machine learning for,” said Alex Holub, head of machine learning at customer data platform (CDP) company mParticle,

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What About The “Human” Element In Selling?

Partners in Excellence

As my social feeds get filled with “gurus” talking about how AI can be deployed to do virtually everything critical to sellers, I started wondering about the “Human” element of engaging our customers and people in our own organizations. It seems AI and tools like ChatGPT are the answer for virtually every sales activity. It can generate endless amounts of well written content for email campaigns, blogs, and so forth.

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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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Latest Podcasts: Building From Within

Force Management

The roadmap for building effective teams begins with the leader. As sales leaders, we can only command the best possible team when we're operating at our own maximum potential. This month’s guests on the Revenue Builders podcast give insight on the essential building blocks for creating company cultures where teams thrive and exceed collective goals.

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That Dreaded First Call!

Engage Selling

 Dread that first call? Many sellers struggle with what to say when calling a prospect for the first time. Here’s what I know works! The post That Dreaded First Call! first appeared on Colleen Francis - The Sales Leader.

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“Vendor Viability”: It’s a Risk Big Customers Know How to Take.

SaaStr

Vendor Viability. The question for bigger customers especially on if a vendor will actually stay around if they you buy. This remains a large risk with start-ups. But it’s been mitigated to some extent in the minds of customers. With 100+ public Cloud companies, it’s now a bit clearer that at least after a certain point in time, SaaS vendors have a lot of stability.

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The Five Must-Have Attributes to Win B2B C-Suite Level Sales

Iannarino

To win C-suite–level sales, you need a set of attributes most salespeople lack. Without them, your chances of winning over C-level executives is a little less than winning the lottery. By working on five key attributes, you improve your ability to sit across the giant desk and learn to create the level of value necessary to capture top executives’ attention and interest, eventually winning their business.

B2B
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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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North Star goals for category leaders: Customer lifetime value model

Martech

This is the third of a four-part series on the North Star goals that set category leaders apart from their peers. You can find Part 1 (one-to-one, omnichannel personalization) here and Part 2 (first-party customer view) here. Sales and marketing professionals understand the continual pressure to reach and convert new customers to a product or service and how easier it is to keep a happy customer than win new ones.

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The Art and Science of Complex Sales Podcast

Membrain

In this latest episode of the Art and Science of Complex Sales podcast, Paul Fuller sits down with Peter Strohkorb to discuss how automated outreach and spam is ineffective and ruining the sales game for everyone.

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How to Feel Better about Prospect Follow-Up

SalesProInsider

What’s your mindset around follow-up efforts for reconnecting with prospects who have stopped responding? What about those who haven’t followed through on the actions that they said they would? Do you get into a mindset of negativity? Do you feel frustrated that you must keep chasing them? Annoyed that you’re the one who’s constantly following up and checking in with them when they’re not doing what they said they would?

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The Secret to Winning Proposals

Engage Selling

 What’s the secret to winning proposals? You’re going to come to a point in your sales cycle where it’s natural for the prospect to want a proposal. Here’s my … The post The Secret to Winning Proposals first appeared on Colleen Francis - The Sales Leader.

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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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Ode to the $100,000,000 Exit

SaaStr

Underrated: How great of a business model SaaS is. You can literally do almost nothing but make your customers happy and usually you will still grow. Underestimated: Just how expensive the incremental customer gets beyond your core, highest velocity ICP. — Jason Be Kind Lemkin  (@jasonlk) February 20, 2023 So in the Boom Times of late 2020 though early 2022, all we talked about was Unicorns. 1,000+ Unicorns bloomed, hundreds of them in SaaS.

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How to Get Better at Sales Calls and Win More B2B Deals

Iannarino

Your only vehicle for creating and winning deals is the sales conversation , which comprises several sales calls. The better you perform on a sales call, the better your results.

B2B
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4 emails that customers will love — and help them love you

Martech

Is your brand easy to love? It is if your products and services are better than anyone else’s for the price. But that’s not the only way to create a lovable brand. Lovable brands embrace customers even when they aren’t in the mood or the market to buy. In dozens of ways, these brands show they appreciate shoppers for more than their lifetime customer value.

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Can Customers Be JOLTed Past Their Fear of Making a Mistake?

Membrain

I recently finished reading the latest book out of Ted McKenna and Matthew Dixon (one of the authors of The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer ), The JOLT Effect. It provides a useful lens through which to think about, and overcome, buyer resistance to making a decision.

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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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How Data Rooms Enable Efficient Management of M&A Transactions

Sales Pop!

Wait time, repeat requests, and sharing tens and hundreds of files is something dealmakers can easily relate to. A merger or an acquisition is a time-consuming process, and it can get longer if there is no proper channel for communication and data sharing. Big thanks to virtual data room technology, M&As are much faster and safer now. For some, virtual data rooms may be a new term, but experienced dealmakers are well aware of the benefits of online data room software in the M&A industry.

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How NOT to Ask Sales Questions

Engage Selling

 You need to ask strategic sales questions in meetings. However, if not done correctly, you’ll quickly be crossing that line between interrogation and investigation. The post How NOT to Ask Sales Questions first appeared on Colleen Francis - The Sales Leader.

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Salesforce Ventures: Only 150 Private SaaS Companies Have Hit $100,000,000 in ARR

SaaStr

In the latest SaaStr Workshop Wednesday (sign up for FREE here ), Jessica Bartos of Salesforce Ventures did a great deep dive on the state of SaaS and venture in 2013. The full session is below and it’s a great watch. One metric stood out to me I hadn’t seen presented before: just how many private SaaS companies (i.e., startups) have crossed $100,000,000.

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How B2B Sales Leaders Build Positive Sales Accountability

Iannarino

All sales organizations are pursuing their sales goals during a difficult time, as buyers expect more from their providers. Reaching high levels of success starts with accountability. Salespeople have more freedom over their time than people in most other business roles, so it's important that they be accountable for certain outcomes within an allotted time frame.

B2B
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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.