March, 2019

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A More Beautiful Question – Change

A Sales Guy

I absolutely love this. I talk about change in Gap Selling and how the discovery is critical to creating the gap. When you’re asking your buyers questions, your helping them look at things differently and are setting the stage for them to change. And that’s your job as a sales person. the brain finds ways to “reduce our mental workload” and one way is to accept without question (or even to just ignore) much of what is going on around us at anytime.

Up-sell 135
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Top 50 Women B2B Sales Experts

Women Sales Pros

Today we give a tip of the hat to the top women B2B sales experts of Women Sales Pros. These experts do varying roles within the sales industry – Some are top keynote sales speakers Some are top sales workshop and sales breakout speakers Some are top sales authors Some are top consultants Some are top trainers Some are top coaches Some lead big organizations, some are solopreneurs.

B2B 134
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Trending Sources

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B2B Ecommerce Sites: What Works for B2B Buyers?

ConversionXL

Many are familiar with the digital darlings that market directly to consumers—Warby Parker, Away, Allbirds, etc. But the B2B ecommerce market is growing exponentially , estimated to reach $1.2 trillion in transactions by 2021. Ecommerce sales are growing for traditional B2B businesses as well as direct-to-consumer brands, which are opening wholesale sides to get a slice of the growing B2B ecommerce pie.

B2B 130
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A Paradox, The Sales Process And The Buying Journey

Partners in Excellence

As sales professionals we face an intriguing paradox. We know, for complex B2B buying, the buyer’s journey can best be described as chaotic. What we have always believed is a linear process–identify a challenge, commit to change, define the problem/needs, evaluate alternatives, select a solution, turns out to be chaotic, as illustrated by the picture below.

Process 130
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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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5 steps to get sales enablement right

Membrain

The number of companies with a dedicated sales enablement function has increased from less than 20% to more than 60% in just a few years [1]. On average, organizations that invest in a dedicated sales enablement function improve sales results by 29%, according to a study by Vantage Point Performance.

Sales 122
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Today’s Challenging State of Selling

SalesforLife

Turning potential prospects into customers is no longer easy for salespeople. Why? The modern buyer is being transformed. Today’s modern buyer is drastically different than buyers of the past, and the buying cycle has also changed significantly. What can salespeople do to adapt to these changing times?

Sell 115

More Trending

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You Only Get One Chance to Make a First Impression

Women Sales Pros

Before any sale can be made, a relationship must be opened. And if multiple sales are to be made to the same customer, that relationship must be maintained and maximized through continually opening new opportunities and, sometimes, new relationships that will enhance the buyer/seller partnership. Many sellers focus too much of their time and attention to closing sales.

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Cold Emails: Can They Work, Or Are They Just Spam?

ConversionXL

Cold emails are unsolicited emails sent to previously uncontacted recipients. The term has a bad reputation. To many, cold emails are synonymous with spam and a nuisance—one reason why U.S. workers spend 3.2 hours checking their work email each day. Why would anyone want to use cold email? Because, when done well, it can work. Cold email is not a replacement for inbound methods but a supplement—a way to drive near-term growth while inbound campaigns gain traction.

CTR 130
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Product Centric Selling, It Really Is About Us!

Partners in Excellence

I’ve been having an email conversation with a colleague about, “Why are sales people so product focused in their sales outreach?” We all know, at least I hope we do, that focusing on the customer, their issues/opportunities, and how we help them achieve their goals, is much more effective than pitching our products. Yet, why do so many organizations fail to do this?

Product 123
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Is the bandwagon effect destroying your effectiveness?

Membrain

What do fashion trends, U.S. elections, and your sales team have in common? They’re all influenced, for better and worse, by the bandwagon effect.

Sales 129
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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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The 11 Best Discovery Call Tips for Sales You’ll Read This Year

Gong.io

Are you looking for the BEST discovery call tips? Ones that will set your sales calls on FIRE? Well, this might be the most important thing you’ll read this year. You’ll see why in a minute. But First… A Disclaimer: These tips are NOT for beginners. You have to know the basics of good discovery for these to work. If you don’t, you’ll misapply them. If you DO know the basics, these tips will take you to the next level.

Technique 111
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A More Beautiful Question

A Sales Guy

Anything that forces people to have to think is not an easy sell, which highlights the challenge of questioning in our everyday lives. The post A More Beautiful Question appeared first on A Sales Guy.

Sell 119
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How to Effectively Follow-up After Sales Meetings

Openview

The average salesperson is losing up to 40% of their deals because they’re not following-up effectively. After a sales meeting, do you ever experience a prospect ‘going dark’ on you? Everything felt like it should have gone great – the prospect seemed interested in the meeting, they asked the right questions, your sales pitch was stellar. And then you send 2-3 follow-ups…but no response.

Follow-up 103
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LinkedIn Video Ads: Relevance, Specs, and Use Cases

ConversionXL

On YouTube, a keyword-targeted pre-roll ad might show the same video to a CEO and an intern. On Facebook, an ideal customer may log on to see photos of a new nephew, not to check out a 30-second demo of your SaaS product. LinkedIn has the potential to resolve both shortcomings: You know much more about who’s on the other end of an ad. You have a pretty good idea of why they’re on LinkedIn—to improve their career or company.

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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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Stop Focusing On The Top Of The Pipeline!

Partners in Excellence

Virtually every sales person and organization have pipeline/funnel problems. Almost all the time, they are anemic. Virtually every pipeline has quality and integrity issues. Likewise, there are too many velocity issues. It seems the universal, go to, solution for bad pipelines is to find more qualified opportunities. That is, we need to focus at the top.

Pipeline 119
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ad-hoc projects: another nail in the coffin of BANT

Membrain

It surprises and shocks me how many sales organisations still regard BANT as a practical way of qualifying sales opportunities. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, it dates back to the steam-driven days prior to the emergence of the Internet, SaaS and modern buying behaviours and stands for Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe.

Sales 109
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Struggling with Sales Enablement in Your Organization? Here’s How You Can Course-Correct Today

Miller Heiman Group

While many organizations reported increased adoption of a sales enablement function in recent years, several still struggle to use it effectively to achieve their goals. According to CSO Insights’ 4th Annual Sales Enablement Study , 61 percent of organizations have a sales enablement function. Of those, only 34.4 percent of respondents indicated they were meeting the majority of their expectations.

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Why Coaching Causes Some Sales Managers to Hold On for Dear Life

Understanding the Sales Force

Over the past few months I've been coaching 30 sales leaders from 3 companies and while most are trying their hardest to do everything I recommend, apply everything they learn, and coach as instructed, there are enough that don't follow through and fail to move the needle for their teams. A few don't want to be coached. A few don't think they need to be coached.

Sales 107
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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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Three Keys to Success in Sales: A BDR Perspective

InsightSquared

My transition into a BDR role at InsightSquared came shortly after spending my first few post-grad years gaining experience in a highly transactional, customer-facing sales role. If you’re late to the game like I was, life as a BDR is one hell of a grind. That’s not a gripe, either. It’s a fact. Believe it or not, the grind is the reason why I love my job.

Gaming 106
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8 Successful Sales Pitch Examples and Why They Work

Sales Hacker

Creating a winning sales pitch has never been more challenging. In a recent report, sales expert Marc Wayshak found that only 24.3% of 400 surveyed sales reps exceeded quotas last year, and that 61% consider selling harder than it was five years ago. Prospects expect sales pitches to be highly personalized, too. But with the rise of automation tools , sales is more of a “numbers game” than ever, so personalizing a pitch can seem like an impossible task.

Pitch 106
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Changing The Questions, Manager’s Version

Partners in Excellence

I wrote, Changing The Questions , discussing how our questioning strategies tend to serve us, not help the customer think about their situations, what they are trying to achieve, and what they might learn. Turns out, managers are just as bad in the questions they ask sales people. (Perhaps, that’s why sales people are so bad.) Managers tend to ask questions that are helpful to them, but not to the sales people.

CRM 118
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Why Is Managing Change So Hard? Here’s How Executives Can Succeed Every Time

Membrain

Change can be hard, but it’s often inevitable and necessary for companies to ensure future success. Companies budget significant amounts of money for training and consultants to help them improve employee skills and business processes. But is that enough?

Consult 107
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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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The Critical 15 Sales Metrics to Monitor

Women Sales Pros

You can’t achieve your revenue sales goal without monitoring interim sales and marketing metrics. Most business owners focus only on the end goals: closed sales and net new clients. But focusing only on the end goal won’t ensure you’ll achieve it. You have to look at how you’re doing all along the way to the closed sale. Now the question is, what to watch?

Cold Call 101
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Are Salespeople Still Using the Hard Sell?

Understanding the Sales Force

When you hear a phrase like the hard sell , do you instantly think of car salespeople? Insurance? Replacement windows? No offense intended to those of you in one of those three industries! While someone's reference to a hard sell may differ, the perception of the hard sell is fairly universal. After prospects state an objection, say they're not interested, or tell the salesperson, "No," prospects tend to raise their resistance.

Sell 105
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The Book on Sales Engagement is Now Available for Pre-Order!

Outreach

Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick , once said, “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” We couldn’t agree more. *deep breath*. Today, we are proud to announce our labor of love, Sales Engagement: How The World's Fastest Growing Companies are Modernizing Sales Through Humanization at Scale , is officially available for pre-order !

Sales 102
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Human-First Sales: What Does it Mean For the SDR Role?

InsightSquared

In the 5+ years I’ve spent meeting modern sales leaders and working with SDRs within our network, I’ve learned from the front lines of 200+ SDR and sales teams about what’s really going on within the SDR function and how it could impact the role in the future. The good news is that there’s no consensus on what works and what doesn’t work, since every director, manager, and SDR for that matter thinks that they have the secret sauce of connecting with prospects.

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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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Key To Great Customer Experience

Partners in Excellence

We know the importance of customer experience. Whether it’s their buying experience or their experience in implementing or using our solutions, customer experience is key to our success. It’s what causes them to buy, repurchase, and recommend. Billions are being invested in customer experience. Whether it’s improving our products and services, improving their digital experience, improving their buying experience; investments in customer experience are increasing.

Customers 119
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Our Numbers Aren’t Laws Of Physics!

Membrain

We tend to think of the Laws Of Physics as fundamental truths about how things behave.* For example, F=M x A (Force is equal to Mass times Acceleration). We always calculate force using this formula, it is universal. These Laws represent fundamental behaviors of objects and very predictable properties.

Represent 104
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The Problem With Assumptions

The Sales Hunter

Do not assume anything! This is easy to say, but sometimes tough to do in the moment. It can seem painless to make an assumption from reading someone’s email, but the real question is what is your assumption, and is it correct? That is where the problem lies. Anyone working with wood has been told this valuable phrase: measure twice, cut once.

Start-ups 100
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The Beginner's Guide to Editing YouTube Videos

Hubspot

As a video marketer, editing might be the most important part of post-production. If you can’t seamlessly weave your shots together or get your cut to hit the right frame, your video will seem unpolished and disengage your viewers. That said, if you’re operating on a shoestring budget, you might not be able to afford video editing software. So what’s a video marketer to do without editing software?

Product 101
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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