The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

The impact of the millennial generation is making headlines everywhere! As a sales manager, you may have read a blog or two on how to manage or even hire millennial talent. But now the headlines are about how millennials are impacting business, from a consumer’s point of view. If you have a hand in marketing or sales, you may be experiencing disruption within this loosely-defined generation as well.  

Most commentators put a millennial between late teens and early twenties to late thirties. That’s why it's loosely defined. But what is clearly defined is how much they have to spend and how they choose to spend it. Millennials are coming of age—gaining ground in their jobs, starting families, and making first major purchases. What they are not doing are taking risks. They’ve seen all too well the impact risk-taking has had on preceding generations, including Generation X and, in some cases, Baby Boomers. So what does this mean for business?

Well, it means there are 3 expectations (or promises) a millennial expects:

It’s not uncommon for a salesperson to want to be a sales manager. In fact, one could easily see a promotion to sales manager as an indication that one has excelled in his or her sales career. If you’re thinking you should pursue a position in management because you are a successful salesperson, I’d like to propose an alternate idea: being a great sales manager has much more in common with being a parent of small children than it does with being a great salesperson.

At The Center For Sales Strategy, we have proof that not all salespeople are meant to be great sales managers. The talents required to succeed in each position are very different. It’s a big mistake to think that just because you have been with your company for a long time and have “paid your dues," you will be happier if you were suddenly promoted to manager.

Ask yourself: On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the highest), how do I rate my desire to do the following?

Sharing insights as part of the sales process is getting a lot of press these days. It makes sense that prospects are looking for relevant insights that will impact their business in world of abundant information. 

But there are two mistakes I see salespeople making when sharing insights. Insights have to actually be relevant to the prospect and be truly insightful in order to speed up the sale. The mistakes I see most frequestly are:

1. Sharing a deck of random facts and thinking they are insights. 
2. Sharing an insight and not turning it into an interesting conversation.

Developing revenue for nonprofit organizations can be a challenge for many reasons. One of the main reasons is finding potential donors and sponsors who resemble your best partners and meet the following criteria:

Cause Marketing is a buzzword bantered about by many in the nonprofit sector. To some, the concept is a proven method to help organizations solve business problems via an association with a worthwhile cause. To others, it is merely a tactic designed to pitch and sell sponsorships to nonprofit events and initiatives.

If you’re the type of salesperson who focuses on maintaining existing accounts by being more responsive and service oriented, you may soon find yourself out of job. It’s the harsh reality (and opportunity) of the explosive expansion and use of chatbots.